Bratz dolls have pre-adolescent figures and are sexy in a pedophilia kind of way. Is this what you want for your 7-year-old?
Mall stores are carrying the most offensive video games money can buy. The biggest seller is “Grand Theft Auto.”
Posted on 12/04/2005 11:20:04 AM PST by wagglebee
Shopping for kids seems to be getting harder every year. I hear from parents across the country who are shocked every time they shop — not just by the prices, but by the toys and other desirables on children’s wish lists.
Do we really want our 4-year old princesses dressing dolls that look like street-walkers? Do we want our teenage daughters to dress that way? Do we want our adolescent sons spending hours playing video games that make a sport of killing policemen and prostitutes? What does it say about our country that some of the most popular products are so offensive? And, what can we do about it?
At one mall, mothers have been protesting a Victoria’s Secret for a store window displaying mannequins in sexually explicit S&M poses. The mannequins model the kinds of microscopic underwear that used to be reserved for strippers, but are now on the wish lists of young teenagers.
But it was not just the merchandise but also the poses that were too offensive, even by today’s standards. Parents don’t like having to walk past sexually explicit store windows with their children — call them crazy, but they don’t think its appropriate for a family shopping mall.
And they don’t want G-strings marketed to adolescent girls. The mall management responded by accusing the politely protesting moms of violating the mall code of conduct!
Mall stores across the country are carrying many of the most offensive video games that money can buy. The all-time biggest seller, “Grand Theft Auto” — now in its third version — finally graduated to an “adults only” rating, which means the game “should only be played by persons 18 years and older” and “may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.” Several major chain stores will not carry “adults only” games, fortunately. Unfortunately, they all carry video games labeled Mature, often geared to pre-teens and young teens, even though they are “suitable for persons ages 17 and older” and contain “intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.” Believe me, they look more like X.
Parents hope that these ratings don’t matter, since it is “only a game” and since kids see so much sex and violence on TV, movies and the Internet. They do matter. Research shows that playing a game that rewards violent and offensive behaviors is even more likely to influence what kids think and do than passively watching it.
Perhaps you’re now thanking your lucky stars that you can shop for dolls instead. But millions of Bratz dolls, dressed like what used to be called “tarts” (now it’s called “attitude”), are sold to preschool and elementary school girls. These dolls have preadolescent figures and are sexy in a pedophilia kind of way. Is this the ideal you want for your darling 7-year-old?
A Bratz TV show helps sell the dolls and electronic Bratz gifts — including telephones and TVs for your child’s room. For parents and grandparents who care about their children, a TV or computer in the room may seem a very reasonable choice. Unfortunately, kids with TV’s in their room watch more TV, watch more TV that their parents would consider objectionable, read less and sleep less. And kids who watch more TV tend to be more violent, are more likely to be overweight and tend to do less well in school.
The advantage of having TV in a child’s room? There aren’t any, unless you want to see less of your child and not hear what they are watching.
Computers in a child’s bedroom are a mixed blessing. Computers are great for schoolwork, but when they are in the bedroom, children are more likely to view pornography or be “educated” in chat rooms in ways you never dreamed of. Research shows that one in five kids receive unwanted online sexual requests.
So, if there is another room in your house for your child to use a computer, instead of their bedroom, that’s a safer choice.
What can we do? If we keep buying sexualized dolls and violent video games, companies will keep promoting more of the same. One solution is to talk to family members who buy gifts for our children, letting them know, for example, what a Mature or Adults Only rating means on a video game. We can also talk to the parents of our children’s friends, to cooperatively establish standards that parents can agree on and avoid the “all my friends have it” line that is otherwise so effective.
And, we can all check Web sites such as www.toysafety.org and www.mediafamily.org to avoid the worst offenders.
Happy holidays? We will be happier if we make sure the things we buy our kids won’t harm them. And we can ask mall managers for help, starting with a real code of conduct for what is sold in their stores.
Children at the Vermont State Fair, September 1941.
How come I didn't have an uncle like you when I was her age ?????
I'm glad you were able to redirect her, and keep your promise.
Unless she overheard a conversation between my husband and I, I'm not sure why my daughter has the attitude she does about the 'slut dolls' but I don't care - I guess we're doing something right!!!
Judging from the many pre-teens (even young children) dressing themselves this way with parents in tow, I'd have to say yes.
Those are new ones on me.......what are they played on?
There are several of those type dresses in my 7year old's closet. Along with the denim jumper the toddler is in.
We shop for clothes at a lot of 2nd-hand stores when it comes to clothing for our girls.
It's getting harder and harder to find jeans that aren't made skin-tight and/or hip-hugging. Sometimes, with our 5 year old, we have to buy her boys jeans, just so she has play clothes that are modest and appropriate.
My wife has been learning how to make dresses, she's been using the sewing machine more and more. It's indeed a blessing.
They are until your 6-year-old moves the alligator from his cage and places it among the crowd.
I still haven't gotten over buying a pair of jeans for my two year old little girl, only to put them on her at home and find they were low-rise. Dresses are still okay, though I find I have to buy a size three or four otherwise they're too short.
May I suggest purchasing the Toughskin brand blue jeans available in the boys' department of Sears? They are called "relaxed fit," but they fit my VERY slim boys nicely, thereby allowing them to look neat in them, and not like a pair of gangbanger wannabes.
I not only get my own boys those jeans, but I purchase them for my neices as well. No embroidered butterflies on them, but by golly, the waistline is ON THE WAIST, and they really take a beating before wearing out, too.
Meanwhile, I'm forced to spend a small fortune shopping at Lord and Taylor in order to buy the girls nice dresses. I simply will not spend my money on the streetwalker styles available in most other stores.
Regards,
A breath of fresh air, a rumble of common sense ...
I agree that it's tough to find clothes for girls that are decent, modest, and reasonably priced. Even the secondhand stores aren't as useful as one would wish, because they like to stock what's fashionable.
However, we're just about done shopping for seven children 14-and-under, and I've had no difficulty at all finding suitable toys, games, crafts, CD's, and books.
That is a sad commentary on today's state of affairs: if it's popular for teenage girls to dress like streetwalkers, then it's only logical for little girls to want to play with streetwalker dolls. You're right about this, but to be blase about it, and say, "Well that's just the way things are today" is not something that many parents are willing to do. We're not saying the world has to be kidproofed; we just want the "kid world" to be kid-friendly.
I'm not in favor of banning things.
We can agree to disagree on that one, LOL.
I'm in favor of parent's making appropriate choices for their children.
And that I agree with whole heartedly. I have a young daughter & I'm a young mom who is probably more with it than the average parent. I'm always amazed at the stupidity of people much older than myself. I know one very nice woman in her 40's who lets her seven year old listen to 50 cent and then wonders where the daughter "learned all those bad words". It's as if some parents have no clue that their child-rearing decisions have consequences.
LOL! You've got a kid like mine. When my son was about 4 and playing Rollercoaster Tycoon, he'd take the kids who were ready to throw up and toss them in the lake. He didn't want them messing up his park.
NeoPets is a website (neopets.com) but my daughter informed me that it will be on Play Station this Christmas.
Animal Crossing is my personal favorite (way too cute) and is a Nintendo game. Zoo Tycoon (1 & 2) is a PC game, but as another poster mentioned, if you let the fierce animals out of their exhibits they will eat the guests, although there's no blood or gore, they just disappear.
I've got three granddaughters so I suddenly started looking at dolls.
Ugh.
I buy them legos. Problem solved.
There's a terrific Lego dollhouse for which one granddaugter designed a great plumbing system with filters and everything.
And 90% of them have no business at all doing it, because all you see is fat bulging over; as for the rest, they are walking advertisements promoting anorexia/bulimia for young girls.
I think we're all in favor of parents making responsible choices. Unfortunately, not all parents make responsible choices and it's their children who are hurting mine. My daughter knows all about what goes on in that Vice City video game, not because she's allowed to play it (she's not), but because her friends told her, right down to the details about the prostitutes and the vulgar words used. Now how do I stop that?
I'm not for banning things either. But I am for forcing manufacturers, advertisers, entertainers, etc. to have some sort of social responsibility. Supply and demand. We have to stop buying and start complaining.
It's a constant uphill battle that's not being fought by enough people.
I fear it's going to get worse before it gets better.
San Andreas! I love that game!
"Unfortunately, not all parents make responsible choices and it's their children who are hurting mine. "
OK, so what's your suggestion to fix this? Do you want to dictate choices for others? Do you want to decide what others should do, based on your own beliefs and standards?
Where do you stop with that? Problem is that to eliminate all the stuff you don't like, and to force others to make the same choices you would make you have to throw freedom away.
Don't like the Bratz dolls? Ban them. Don't like video games for adults? Ban them. Sorry, but that's not how it works in this country.
You're responsible for your behavior and that of your children. You make those choices. Others, for better or worse, make other choices.
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