Dreaming of a Commercial Free LA

Last month I attended the annual summit of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. I spent two days immersed in information about how our culture attempts to commercialize almost every aspect of children's lives with the intention of wringing profit from children's daily activities--playing, eating, learning. It is overwhelming to realize how pervasive and powerful commercial forces are in our society, but it is also encouraging that there are many many individuals and organizations working to counter the attempt to define our lives through what we have and what we buy rather than who we are and what we do.

The conference speakers presented examples of how commercialism affects the development, experience and possibilities for today's children and youth. Some of the speakers included Jean Kilbourne, author of Can't Buy My Love; Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids; Joe Kelly, president of Dad's and Daughters; Diane Levin, author of The War Play Dilemma; Michael Rich from the Center on Media and Child Health; and Alex Molnar, author of Giving Kids the Business.

I thought I would start this blog in order to share information about these issues and provide a forum for interested folks in LA.

To start things off, and with the holidays approaching, I wanted to share some resources with you that might offer some help in choosing gifts for kids and adults, and some alternative to the consumerist madness that blankets us this time of year.

First, for some guidance about toys that encourage peaceful and creative play take a look at the toy guide from T.R.U.C.E. Unfortunately, this guide doesn't cover kids past the age of 7 or 8. (Even though it seems harder and harder to find kids older than 8 who actually play with toys rather than use media platforms, I believe a toy guide for older kids would be great...)

The Center for a New American Dream has a great set of resources for how to simplify your holidays. If you sign up on their website, you can download a their holiday guide, as well as other publications about kids and commercialism.