Mothering Magazine / By Jonathan Rowe and Gary Ruskin

The Parents' Bill of Rights

Isn't it time we were given the tools to protect our kids from brainwashing?

April 28, 2003 |

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Paul Kurnit is the president of KidShop, an advertising firm that specializes in marketing to children, and he has plans for our kids.

"Kid business has become big business," Kurnit says. To make it even bigger, he preaches what he calls "surround marketing" -- saturation advertising that captures kids at every possible moment.

"You've got to reach kids throughout the day -- in school, as they're shopping at the mall, or at the movies," says Carol Herman, a senior vice president at Grey Advertising. "You've got to become part of the fabric of their lives."

Parents' Bill of Rights

To send a letter to your members of Congress in support of the Parents' Bill of Rights, visit Commercial Alert's website.

WHEREAS, the nurturing of character and strong values in children is one of the most important functions of any society;

WHEREAS, the primary responsibility for the upbringing of children resides in their parents;

WHEREAS, an aggressive commercial culture has invaded the relationship between parents and children, and has impeded the ability of parents to guide the upbringing of their own children;

WHEREAS, corporate marketers have sought increasingly to bypass parents, and speak directly to children in order to tempt them with the most sophisticated tools that advertising executives, market researchers and psychologists can devise;

WHEREAS, these marketers tend to glorify materialism, addiction, hedonism, violence, and anti-social behavior, all of which are abhorrent to most parents;

WHEREAS, parents find themselves locked in constant battle with this pervasive influence, and are hard pressed to keep the commercial culture and its degraded values out of their children's lives;

WHEREAS, the aim of this corporate marketing is to turn children into agents of corporations in the home, so that they will nag their parents for the things they see advertised, thus sowing strife, stress and misery in the family;

WHEREAS, the products advertised generally are ones parents themselves would not choose for their children: violent and sexually suggestive entertainment, video games, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and junk food;

WHEREAS, this aggressive commercial influence has contributed to an epidemic of marketing-related diseases in children, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, alcoholism, anorexia, and bulimia, while millions will eventually die from the marketing of tobacco;

WHEREAS, corporations have latched onto the schools and compulsory school laws as a way to bypass parents and market their products and values to a captive audience of impressionable and trusting children;

WHEREAS, these corporations ultimately are creatures of state law, and it is intolerable that they should use the rights and powers so granted for the purpose of undermining the authority of parents in these ways; THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the U.S. Congress and the 50 state legislatures should right the balance between parents and corporations and restore to parents some measure of control over the commercial influences on their children, by enacting this Parents' Bill of Rights, including the following legislation:

Leave Children Alone Act: Bans television advertising aimed at children under 12 years of age.

Child Privacy Act: Restores to parents the ability to safeguard the privacy of their children. It gives parents the right to control any commercial use of personal information concerning their children, and the right to know precisely how such information is used.

Children's Advertising Subsidy Revocation Act: It is intolerable that the federal government rewards corporations with tax write-offs for the money they spend on psychologists, market researchers, ad agencies, and media in their campaigns to instill their values in our children. This act eliminates all federal subsidies, deductions, and preferences for advertising aimed at children under 12 years of age.

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