Have "This" Mind in You: Consumptive Culture and Our Children

If you have ever watched Saturday morning cartoons/shows with your children, you have experienced first hand the attempt to train and indoctrinate our children in the ways of consumptive culture. The gospel of consumerism is a deceptive one that can often seem benign, but that cultivates in our children (and us) a particular way of understanding life, including how we view ourselves and our relationships to others, the world, and God. It calls us to be its disciple, to develop habits and a pattern of life shaped by its story, driving toward its eschatology. The story proclaimed by this particular gospel steals our imaginations and erodes our moral decision making capacities in profound ways. Just remember back a few years ago when the word that was supposed to be the most profound reassurance of hope born out the September 11 disaster was "America is now open for business." Our imaginations have been commandeered by a the need and desire to consume. (For a wonderful look at some of the issues here and their impact on our lives, consider Cavanaugh's Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire.)

Recently, my wife discovered a wonderful initiative called the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. It is a national coalition of everyone from professionals to parents, activists to authors, that is housed at the Judge Baker Children's Center at Harvard. The CCFC webpage is full of wonderful ideas on how to think about and counter the impact of consumptive culture on our children, which can also serve to spark our imaginations on how it might be impacting us as well. I hope that you will consider glancing at it.

Here is the CCFC mission statement:

CCFC’s mission is to reclaim childhood from corporate marketers. A marketing-driven media culture sells children on behaviors and values driven by the need to promote profit rather than the public good. The commercialization of childhood is the link between many of the most serious problems facing children, and society, today. Childhood obesity, eating disorders, youth violence, sexualization, family stress, underage alcohol and tobacco use, rampant materialism, and the erosion of children’s creative play, are all exacerbated by advertising and marketing. When children adopt the values that dominate commercial culture—dependence on the things we buy for life satisfaction, a “me first” attitude, conformity, impulse buying, and unthinking brand loyalty—the health of democracy and sustainability of our planet are threatened. CCFC works for the rights of children to grow up—and the freedom for parents to raise them—without being undermined by commercial interests.

*I do realize that there are a lot of thoughts here that are not fleshed out. My intent in this post is not so much to examine the sources of the problem or to show all of the ways the gospel of consumerism is in a contest with the narrative we claim as our own as Christians. It is, rather, simply to shine a light on the problem to encourage thinking on the topic and to offer some creative food for thought from the CCFC.