And no, yellarcan, it doesn’t have much to do with the original story but as I said it is in keeping with the “new” spirit of the season. Both stories are about the “gotta have it now” crowd who have long forgot or were never taught the right way to behave.

I have 4 kids ages 8 – 12 and I am happy to say that they do not demand nor do they get anything they want – even when we can afford it. But I hate to say it…they are the exception and not the rule.

“Delivering disappointment goes with the job of parenting.” Fatalistic? Realistic. “Economic pressure on parents…”? Get real.

Meltdown fallout: some parents rethink toy-buying
By DAVID CRARY – 2 days ago

NEW YORK (AP) — In a season that inspires earnest letters about toys, one notable batch is being sent not by kids to Santa’s workshop but by parents to the executive suites of real-world toy makers.

The message: Please, in these days of economic angst, cut back on marketing your products directly to our children.

The letter-writing initiative was launched by the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which says roughly 1,400 of its members and supporters have contacted 24 leading toy companies and retailers to express concern about ads aimed at kids.

“Unfortunately, I will not be able to purchase many of the toys that my sons have asked for; we simply don’t have the money,” wrote Todd Helmkamp of Hudson, Ind. “By bombarding them with advertisements … you are placing parents like me in the unenviable position of having to tell our children that we can’t afford the toys you promote.”

The Toy Industry Association has responded with a firm defense of current marketing practices, asserting that children “are a vital part of the gift selection process.”

“If children are not aware of what is new and available, how will they be able to tell their families what their preferences are?” an industry statement said. “While there is certainly greater economic disturbance going on now, families have always faced different levels of economic well-being and have managed to tailor their spending to their means.”

In recent conference calls with investors, toy company executives said they expect to suffer some holiday-season impact from the economic crisis, yet suggested their industry would be more resilient than many other sectors. The toy industry is commonly viewed as recession-resistant, due largely to the parent-child dynamic.

“Parents have trouble saying no,” said Allison Pugh, a University of Virginia sociology professor. She says parents often buy toys to avoid guilt and ensure their children feel in sync with school classmates.

“Even under circumstances of dire financial straits, that’s the last thing parents give up,” said Pugh. “They’ll contain their own buying for themselves before they’ll make their child feel different at school.”

Amanda Almodovar says she encounters such families in her work as an elementary school social worker in Alamance County, N.C., where homelessness and unemployment are rising.

“I had one parent who said she’d prostitute herself to get what her child wants,” Almodovar said. “It’s heartbreaking. They feel inadequate as parents.

“I try to tell them, worry about your home, your heating bill — but they’re the ones who have to look into children’s faces, the children saying ‘I want this, I want that.’”

Even in some households not in fiscal crisis, there’s a sense that this holiday season is different.

John Schenkenfelder, a financial adviser and father of three in Louisville, Ky., wrote a blog entry this month urging families to scale down their gift-giving and spend more time playing together.

“This has been bugging me for years, even when times were great,” Schenkenfelder said in a telephone interview. “Maybe people will get it this year — they’re so unprepared for this debacle. They’re shell-shocked.”

In Columbus, Ohio, Erin Beth Dower Charron has been trying to brace her 4-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter for more subdued gift-getting this year as the family begins financial belt-tightening.

“My 8-year-old is still holding out hope that Santa will get her that one special gift, but understanding this year may be different,” Dower Charron said. “My son doesn’t understand. Everything he sees, he wants.”

Toy ads on kids’ TV shows make the process harder, she said. “The onslaught seems to be more intense this year.”

Dower Charron was among the hundreds of parents who took up the suggestion to write to toy companies.

“Help me understand why your toy is the better one for my child, and why it should be one of the few I can afford,” she wrote. “Don’t leave that up to my children.”

The director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, psychologist Susan Linn, said she and her colleagues don’t expect toy companies to stop advertising — rather, they want the ads directed at parents.

“It’s cruel to dangle irresistible ads for toys and electronics in front of kids — encouraging them to nag for gifts that their parents can’t afford,” she said. “It’s just not fair.”

The big toy makers aren’t likely to redirect their ads for one fundamental reason, according to Richard Gottlieb, a New York-based consultant to the industry.

“Toy companies advertise to children because it works, to be brutally honest,” Gottlieb said in an interview.

Gottlieb also contends that it’s good for children to encounter toy ads — even in cases where products later turn out to be disappointments.

“It teaches, for very low stakes, how to navigate in our consumer culture,” he said.

“They are going to have to spend the rest of their lives listening to every kind of marketing approach, and childhood is where they will learn to cope with it.”

As for the economic pressure on parents, Gottlieb sounds a fatalistic note.

“Believe me, there are families with much bigger issues on their plates right now then worrying about whether their child will be unhappy because they did not get a particular toy,” Gottlieb wrote in his “Out of the Toy Box” blog. “Delivering disappointment goes with the job of parenting.”

You tellum artboy.

I had heard that as well, maybe they missed the part about the crowd ripping the doors off the hinges?

Thanks for the kudos. I’ve often wondered if knowing the depravity of human nature, that our founding fathers insisted on the right to bear arms for not only protection against a potential corrupt government, but also from our fellow man who refuses to behave in a civilized manner.

“An armed society is a polite society.”
Thomas Jefferson

Oh, for the love of God. Are you even half serious? Is it I who is now taking the bait?

Please merryanne: personal responsibility. Yes it’s difficult, yes it sucks sometimes, but it is the Alpha and Omega of civilization. Civilization – remember that word and it’s meaning… It ain’t Wal-Mart’s fault – it’s the rubbish impersonating humanity at fault.

Those were miscreants. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Nonetheless, I am in complete agreement about the usurpation of our Lord’s birth. But nothing excuses this disgrace.

p.s. 12 Gauge Rage – Bingo!

Okay, how much merchandise is enough, should they go ask everyone within 10 square miles what they will be buying on a given sale day?
What if Sony or Microsoft cant keep up with the demand for a certain product, how are the retailers supposed to have enough of this mystical number “plenty”.
By spreading out the times, do you mean have the sales last longer?
24 hours, 48, 72, 144?

We have become a nation of litigation because everyone wants to play the game Lawsuit Lottery.
“I busted my ass, in the parking lot, I should be a millionaire, so I’ll sue sue sue.”
There was not enough security is the other battle cry, “enough” another of those mystical numbers, kinda like plenty.

Responsibility is a word that only applies to somebody with enough money to make a lawsuit profitable.
I suggest retailers build guard towers housing guards with fully automatic weapons to keep the shoppers in line, and give them “enough” ammo.

so, the retailers need to “compensate” for the wild beasts rutting in the aisles.

sounds like a plan obamy might be cooking up

anyway, I think it’s Bush’s fault

This is yet another reason to stay in school, study hard and get ahead, lest you end up forced to live in a neighborhood populated with these sorry excuses for humanity.

Somehow though, I knew some bright bulb would connect the dots and place the blame
squarely on where it belongs….George Bush.

Until the black community gets to cleaning its collective act up, they will not be taken seriously as a group. How’s that hip-hop culture working out for you?

That is not saying that the whites are all that much better.
Nothing stupider than watching middle class white teenagers trying to act street or ghetto or whatever the hell its called.

Retailers shouldn’t be held responsible for society’s ills, nor for the fact that a bunch of greedy idiots can’t act like human beings in their rush to buy things the media has been reporting for months now they can’t afford (yet that they somehow bought.)

Black Friday has nothing to do with Christ’s birth; even an atheist can appreciate $500 off on a TV. :-)