Born to Buy: The Commercialised Child and the New Consumer Culture - Hardcover

Amy Bloom"O, The Oprah Magazine" "Born to Buy" is so grounded in appalling data about both kids and advertising companies, it has the effect of making even the most TV-and-advertising-wary parents among us realize that we haven't been half vigilant enough. Arlie Russell Hochschildauthor of "The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work" and "The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work" This brilliant, informative, and deeply important book tells us what the advertisers don't -- the more advertising children see and hear, the more likely they are to be depressed and anxious and to suffer family conflict. The American dream isn't something we buy, Schor wisely tells us; it's something we make and can, if broken, repair. A book that will start a revolution... Viviana Zelizerauthor of "Pricing the Priceless Child" and "The Social Meaning of Money" Juliet Schor has established herself as a sharp observer and critic of American commercialism. In Born to Buy, this social analyst and concerned mother turns her attention to marketing for children, combining observation in the advertising industry, interviews in a Boston suburb, and close study of merchandising methods. Readers need not agree with all her arguments to learn plenty about how relations between children and merchandising media are changing and what threats to children's well-being those changes are producing. Bill McKibbenauthor of "Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age" There must be a special circle of hell designed for those who came up with the notion of marketing to young kids, and if so, Juliet Schor is its Dante -- this is a tremendous book, in the tradition of "Fast Food Nation." Mary Pipherauthor of "Reviving Ophelia" and "Letters to a Young Therapist" Juliet Schor is a human laser beam. Her careful research and brilliant analysis are presented in lucid prose. Plato defined education as teaching our children to find pleasure in the right things. Most parents do their best, but they are fighting a culture that educates our children to value all the wrong things. Children are suffering mentally, physically, and spiritually. Schor's book can put us on a path toward once again protecting our children. This may be the most important book of 2004. Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D.professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and Judge Baker Children's Center, Boston, Mass. "Born to Buy" is an eye-opener. It illuminates marketers' unrelenting exploitation of our youth; the well-being of children has been made secondary to maximizing corporate profit. This book is certain to shake us out of our complacency; I highly recommend it. Vicki Robincoauthor of "Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence" What a fascinating and mobilizing book! No mother or father "intends" to turn over child-rearing to the consumer culture, but the stress and speed of life wear down their resolve, making television, toys, electronics, and branding a kind of 'shadow parent' that literally spoils our children. Juliet Schor gives us ample evidence of the cost -- to our children and society -- of this drift into corporation raised kids. "Born to Buy" will inspire anyone concerned with the next generation.

Over the last fifteen years children's spending power has mushroomed to an estimated USD30 billion in direct purchases and another USD600 billion of influence over parental purchases. Advertising and marketing has exploded alongside expenditures and now totals more than USD12 billion a year. Ads targeted at children are virtually everywhere - in schools, museums and on the internet - and strategies for capturing the child wallet have become ever more sophisticated. Marketers are intruding into a child's most private space, organizing stealthy peer-to-peer viral marketing efforts, and using high tech scientific research methodologies. Together, these trends have led to a pervasive commercialisation of childhood in the West. By eighteen months babies can recognize logos, by two they ask for products by brand name. During their nursery school years children will request an average of twenty-five products a day, by the time they enter primary school the average child can identify 200 logos and children between the ages of six and twelve spend more time shopping than reading, attending youth groups, playing outdoors or spending time in household conversation. On the basis of first-hand research inside the advertising industry, BORN TO BUY lays bare the research, messages and marketing strategies being used to target children, and assesses the impact of those efforts.