Random booky thoughts

I'm reading "What's Happening To Our Girls?" at the moment, and it's a bit scary. Well, a lot scary actually. Awesome Fakts, like:

* every hour of TV watched by a small child each day may increase their risk of developing attention problems by almost 10% by the time they turn 7
* by the age of 2, children can recognise their favourite brands in shops and let parents know they want them

 ...etc etc. Girls and fashion, brands, makeup, princess merchandise, and even with my own personal aversion to stupid revolting Girly-dolls, Barbie has never appeared so sinister. Girls as consumers. Yech.

A friend of my ex's in Sydney has a gorgeous little girl, and at 3 years old her favourite thing was "shoppinggggggg!", generally uttered with girlish delight with the word drawn out, just like I've typed it. Sure, she was hell cute, but it chilled me a little at the time, because it's the sort of thing you'd expect from a 16 year old. And the thing about this little girl is that her mother was a stay at home mum, and read to her, and did all of that positive parenting stuff that makes such a difference, so it was even more of a surprise. The book gives a few insights as to where this stuff comes from, and what I'm liking about it is that it's not just a "corporations are bad, mmk" message, there's a lot of stuff there for parents - ideas of what to do instead, how to "fight" this conditioning in their kids (and in particular their girls). 

I remember my mother buying me a tshirt when I was in my late teens. I still wonder what possessed her to buy it for me. It was sort of cute, in a weird way - it had a pink and orange dinosaur holding a variety of baggies and totes and said "Shopasaurus" underneath it with a silly fake-dictionary "definition" under that in smaller writing. It felt like a bit of a betrayal - we'd grown up in op shop clothing, and rather than buying the David Eddings novels as they were released I'd reserve them from our local library. I remember waiting 7 months for the library copy of "The Seeress of Kell" to come my way, and I devoured it like a girl starving. Heh.

It just felt wrong. I mean, how bizarrely ironic can you get... I'm fairly certain the shirt came from the local op shop! I wore it a few times to make her happy, but even though I was uncomfortable with it. Even though we'd been part of a religion which shunned fashion and labels, and had been financially disadvantaged, my mother still had these sort of ideas of what a girl should be, should like, should do. 

There was a bit of fuss one Christmas not long ago over a Disney Princess themed gift given to a young relative. Her mum gently asked for the gift to be exchanged. I was a little shocked - the child loved it, and it seemed so... mean. I find I'm changing my mind, and am impressed with the mum's wisdom, and the courage it must have taken to ask for the present to be exchanged.

Comments

[Siobhan]

I'm possibly even worse than your relative - my daughter was, until very recently, young enough for inappropriate gifts to be "disappeared", and I did so, with very little guilt. My friends'n'relations all know that I will not react well to princess crud or Br*tz merch. This is not to say M doesn't have pink things, or fairyish things. She does. But they're dress ups or otherwise imagination-expanding, not options-limiting. I have no idea how I will deal with it when school starts and she gets given crap from birthday parties, as I'm sure will happen.

I would really like to read that book! Will see what the local library has.

[ceels]

O! I remember waiting for the Seeress of Kell. It was the first time I'd read a series and the first time I'd had to wait for a book and the Agony.

Did you hear that he died this week? (yesterday or the day before?) I just borrowed the Belgariad from the library and I am going to spend some of the long weekend with old friends.

[Sarah]

I read this and I thought, is that me you are talking about? Hope not...! I despise the branded merchandise that is out there and everyone and anyone is under the threat of death should that blonde 50 y/o this year doll end up in my daughters hands. She has discovered her sadly at friends places and that is fine, but not in my home, ever. Sadly the recognition point is very true, she even knows what McD's is, she has never eaten it but knows what those golden arches are all about. Even restricting TV to ABC kids with no commercial adverts doesn't seem to work, they still cotton on to logos etc... The trick is to help steer their choices to the product/s you want in your house that will last longer than 5 minutes attention and not drain your purse constantly replacing batteries... that is an art!