Now is the Hour

Are our actions consistent with our actions? Raising children in times of constant distraction and looming sadness can challenge the depth of our beings. It is in such times that our ability to stay focused and grounded is most needed. Now is the hour when we must stay clear and on task. We do that simply by living in ways that reflect the truth.

It is easy to get off center: everyday crisis, children that require special attention, partners that are feeling neglected, mounting to-do lists, demanding bosses to our own distracting natures. How do we instill a practice of returning to our centers over and over again? How do we reclaim our children from the $15 billion dollar industry that has been designed to take them away from us?

Every where we turn there is some kind of something luring them away to be brand consumers for life. Perhaps we ourselves have fallen prey to their tactics. Maybe we have bought in to the idea that what we buy identifies who we are. Maybe we think the characters that plaster every baby item at Babies-R-Us are cute and have become numb ourselves to the 3,000 commercial media blitz we are inundated with daily.

Yet, when we begin to unravel and understand the depth of manipulation and impact of this 360 degree immersive marketing world we now live in, we begin to see things a bit differently – especially when we see the intentional manipulation of the minds of children who are helpless against the minds of MIT grads who spend their days analyzing and observing the behaviors of kids to ensure cradle to grave brand loyalty.

We now have a booming toddler industry that is capitalizing on the research that children recognize brand logos at the age of one. We have a $10 billion infant educational video industry that has led parents believe that their children will be smarter when in reality that are making them dumber according to recent studies. NO CHILD UNDER THE AGE OF 36 MONTHS SHOULD WATCH ANY TV.

We have a tween industry that has gone from 10-12 year olds to as low as four to six year olds. Our children are being sexualized and encouraged to want products like make-up, designer clothes and expensive gadgets like ipods and cell phones. The innocence of childhood is disappearing before our eyes. Creative play in 12 year olds has decreased 94% in the past decade. Our children are not given chances to play, and when they do play it is modeled after some show or character that has been invented for them rather than their own mind.

Our kids are becoming Super Consumers and in the process they are being dumbed down, fat and sick. We need to take our children back from the clutches of consumerism. We need to instill values and keep them safe. We do this by knowing what our values are and standing up for what we believe. There is no self in consumerism – just selfishness.

Mothering in this time is not an easy task when we must battle every day for our children. We live in a country where government agencies are refusing to do their job to help protect our children who are the target of money hungry marketers. Tactics continue to worsen since Congress took the authority away from the Federal Trade Commission in 1979 to regulate advertising towards children when there was concern that they were being targeted to want sugary cereals.

Since that time our children have been at the mercy of marketers. Combating this goliath requires much hard work and energy. To effectively counter their strategies we must develop our own. We must be grounded in our own truths and not bend for our children’s sake. By just living what we know to be true we are powerful.

Take for example the knowing that TV (computer, cell phone…) is bad for our children (and us). GET RID OF YOUR TV. Take back your children and stop letting them be brainwashed! Spend moments of silence with your children. Meditate with them. Listen to them. Bring them back to a point of balance. Bring yourself back. Quiet yourself long enough to hear what’s true without being distracted.

YOU are the last link between the worlds. Our children are being raised without any knowledge of the past. The consumer world of today is their reality. Show them another way. Connect them with the MOTHER, the Earth. Join together with other mothers who are stepping up for the RIGHTS OF CHILDREN. You are not alone!

Buy a copy of Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood from the Media Education Foundation at www.mediaed.org Watch it and show it to as many other mothers you possibly can. Join the Mamalution by clicking on the icon on my page.