Customer Reviews

Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds

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This will, in all likelihood, be the most important book published this year.

Susan Gregory Thomas uncovers and exposes a threat to every child, and the adult that child is to become, that most of us are only vaguely aware of: the unbelievably extensive corporate attempt--clearly successful--to turn our children into unthinking consumers motivated only by status.

Thomas is tenacious in her demonstration of the lengths to which companies go in order to turn our sons and daughters into automatons substituting an addictive desire for the next "must-have" item for the development of imagination and learning.

Most of us were aware that advertising aimed at children was unwholesome, but Thomas shows the myriad ways in which such advertising is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Here it is possible present only a small sample of the lines of attack used not merely by mega-corporations, but also by "parent-friendly" companies. Their armamentarium includes manipulation by findings of academic psychologists, neurological investigation, licensing ploys that limit choice and raise price, collusion by education organizations and revered operations like Sesame Street and Baby Einstein...the list goes on and on. This one book makes the reader a virtual expert on the subject and an able opponent against those who would brainwash your children. (Thomas shies away from the term, but it is impossible not to see the practices she exposes in such terms.)

The importance of this book, and its potential to improve our children's lives, is huge. It is not going too far to say that Susan Gregory Thomas is the Rachel Carlson challenging the practices she describes. Buy, Buy Baby is compulsively readable and spellbindingly interesting, but these are the least of its virtues. If you have kids, or worry about what kids face today, this book is for you

Steven Goldberg
Chairman (Retired)
Department of Sociology
City College, City University of New York

Thomas's "Buy Buy Baby" is two books for the price of one.

The first book shows how toy manufacturers, educational publishers, and TV studios are making toddlers brand-conscious at very early ages. Almost immediately, brand-consciousness translates into desire for branded products that people a toddler's world at the supermarket, in the public library and the preschool. and at home. What parent is strong enough to deny his or her toddler a Disney product or a PlaySchool educational toy?

The second book is a thoughtful look at the impact of this commercial onslaught on very young minds. Thomas describes current research showing that Baby Einstein and other "educate-my-toddler" videos scramble rather than clarify the way toddlers process information. Toddlers respond to love and attention from real people, not from toys with flashing lights or CD's whose visual images may fascinate but at the same time may slow development.

Thomas admits to being a busy, stressed parent herself who must stretch to find enough time to play with her two daughters. So she makes play count, letting her little girls develop their imaginations, invent games, and just have fun. Technically-advanced toys and beguiling videos appear to have only a small place in the Thomas home.

Buy Buy Baby is an eye-opener. Parents and grandparents should read its ageless message: commercial products that impinge on the toddler world are more of a burden than a benefit during the first three years of life. In no way do they substitute for intimate parent-child relationships.

THere's a lot to mull over in this book, and not a quick, easy read. It gives the run down on different toys, companies, their ploys to market to parents and children, esp "learning" based toys. I didn't really get a special Ah-ha! moment or find any considerable scandals like I was expecting to get out of this book. I bought this since I felt overwhelmed by all the commercialism there is for parents and new babies, esp now buying CHristmas toys for my first baby. I try to hold back and offer my child simpler, basic toys and steer clear of too many flashy, battery-operated toys with lights, music, and "bells and whistles" so to speak.
The book was informative but not enough to sway me from avoiding major companies and their toys. I think parents just need to be choosy and wise when selecting toys that offer the best for their child - find the right balance.
One thing I'll take away from it is the importance of "imaginary play" for children to develop a since of imagination and not just be glued to a toy that sings and dances for them constantly...a-hem, Elmo! When I was a kid we played in the backyard and used acorns, leaves, and sticks to play "kitchen". And this was back in the 80's. I think it's important for kids to develop that since of creativity and imagination that "learning" toys don't always offer them. Remember, just because a toy says "learning" on it doesn't means it really IS.

"Buy, Buy Baby" reads like a good detective novel. The author uncovers the facts and presents them in a clear and thoughtful manner. She never judges how parents raise their children. Every parent should read this book.

The book really hit home for me when Thomas recalled a marketing exec's reply to a question about whether or not it might be disconcerting for a child to hear its disembodied mother's voice in a toy. "I guess we have to say that we put the mother's voice in because the research said that babies' and toddlers' social interaction with mother enhances learning."

Well thank god for the research! I laughed so hard I blew cold coffee out my nose. Idiots! How much did they pay for that bit of information? Have these marketers ever spent time with babies? I was ready to brush the whole thing off as silly marketing speak but as I read the rest of the book I became more and more disturbed. That corporations market their products to babies and toddlers is reprehensible but until laws are past to protect children between the ages of 0 and 3, marketers will continue to exploit them. Research lets them do that job well.

Parents, me included, are not prepared to deal with the psycho-emotional manipulation that this 20 billion dollar a year industry produces. With other products, if I succumb to marketing, it's me that looks silly in the too tight pair of jeans. But this is different. When parents succumb to toy marketing it's their babies sitting in front of the TV watching videos. Before reading this book, I thought that babies watching TV was no big deal. Before reading Fast Food Nation, I thought eating a couple Big Macs was no big deal. I've changed my mind.

a must read for any parent or educator out there who wishes to raise and guide their child thoughtfully and to think independently about their parenting choices in a culture that does not hold children's best interests at heart.
the author clearly and objectively shows us how corporations manipulate anxious parents who want to do the best for their child, into buying a vast array of products touted as educational, while the research actually points to different degrees of harm that can come to children and parents who "buy" into this branding culture. The author becomes a strong advocate for children's right to live and develop in a culture that respects them and cares for them over chasing the profit margin.if enough people read this book, it could change how we think about children and their rights to be children in our society.

Uh, oh. Are you among those parents, grandparents, godparents and other grown-ups who've bought your favorite toddlers LeapFrog and Baby Einstein products under the illusion they'll help educate young minds? Think again. According to "Buy, Buy Baby," an eye-opening new book by Susan Gregory Thomas, many of these toys don't deliver on the educational promises in their ads and packaging. Not only that, familiar brand-name products in toddlers' toy chests, as well as TV programs purported to encourage early learning actually act as stumbling blocks to achieving the cognitive potential of developing brains. At the same time, subtle marketing strategies aimed at infants a year-old or less are converting tiny children into demanding--and noisy-consumers. "Buy, Buy Baby" was partly inspired when the author didn't like what she saw going on with her own small daughters and the children of family and friends. As she delved further into what would become more than three years of exhaustive first-hand research, the respected investigative journalist knew she was onto something big. I urge everyone with kids aged 0 to 3 in their lives to read "Buy, Buy Baby" by Susan Gregory Thomas. It's readable and filled with common sense advice on the best things you can do to help a young child's development.

If I had a lot of money, I would give this book to all my friends who have young children or are about to have children. If you have ever suspected that something is deeply wrong with our consumer/TV culture - especially where our children are concerned, this helps you put a definite finger on it. We and our children are being manipulated and harmed by money grubbing companies who hide behind "learning" as a way to rake in the cash. They both incite and take advantage of parents' concerns that they are simply not doing enough for their children and that they can somehow boost their children's IQs/talents by putting them in front of gadgets and videos. Some of the questions and research findings presented in the book have recently been supported by a U of W study showing that videos such as Baby Einstein are not helpful for infants and may even delay language development. The marketing profiles of the different kinds of moms out there, depending on their age and income/education level, are spooky. Marketers and the companies they work for know all about you and what makes you tick and spend. Some people call this free-enterprise, but some of the marketing and R&D you will read about in this book are completely unethical and some are really asking for a class action lawsuit. Squash consumer culture. Turn that TV off and talk to your baby, go take a walk, go to the park,...

One of the key points the other reviewers may have missed is Thomas' finding that most of the marketing people and product designers she interviewed seemed genuinely interested in making a good product for children -- they too seemed to misunderstand the research, subconciously recalling the bits favorable to their beliefs and discounting the opposing studies. Many just did not have time to think about the culmulative effects of what they were doing. The book seems as much a call to stop and think about the big picture as an indictment of an industry.

For parents who recall the early days of "Program Length Commercials" (PLCs) like He-Man, and Transformers, and G.I. Joe, one might think that Strawberry Shortcake and the new Care Bears are nothing new, but Thomas points out that the trend is towards marketing to ever younger kids -- a phenomena called "kids getting older younger" (KGOY). She also raises serious issues about commercial culture sneaking into preschools via free products and materials, lending a sense of the school's endorsement of the commercial message.

A disturbing read that reaffirms one's desire to spend as much time as one can with one's kids in "free play" with generic toys.

I wish everyone who is planning to heap junk, I mean, presents on my children would read this book! I learned so much and I really enjoyed what a good writer the author is. It was like reading some of the very best feature articles in Newsweek. She provided very eye opening statistics about the incredible commerical success of baby products and contrasted it with the scientific knowledge that exists for how unlikely most of these products are to help children's thinking abilities develop. I am especially glad for the gathering of evidence for how TV/DVD viewing negatively affects very young children, a slap in the face to the juggernaut industry that now exists to crank out such product. Other parts of the book include relevant interviews, realistic offerings for how to live and cope with the information, and interesting information about how marketers view Generation X parents so that those of us who are that market can avoid traps! I wouldn't say that was necessarily the author's agenda - but it is mine and I think this book has helped with that!

Marketers market at children. Advertisers use and target children. Makers of toys, cartoon shows, and more know that children are a lucrative market. And that if you cannot get to the parents, get to their wallets via children. It may appear to be wrong, and it may militate against our sense of right and wrong, but it happens, all the time. This book attempts to document, expose, and reveal how, when, and possibly why this happens.

You can look at the material in this book as basically covering two topics. One is the part that dwells on how children learn, whether watching television lets them learn any better (or worse). The author also dwells on what drives parents when deciding what to spend on children. The second part is numerous examples of toys, cartoon shows, and franchises that were built into billion dollar businesses through careful branding, advertising, and marketing. Examples are Disney Princesses, Winnie the Pooh, Care Bears, Clifford the Dog, Elmo, and lots more.

One of the most useful and fascinating chapters of the book is on the theoretical and psychological insights into how children learn (Ch 3 - 'It's Like Playschool on TV'). The work of such people as Piaget and Vygotsky serve as the basis for much of the material here.

To a great extent this book works.
But... It is not a masterpiece of muckracking like 'Fast Food Nation'. There is also the sense that the author is unwilling to take a strong stand on this targeting of children, relying instead on the reader to come to that conclusion. Thirdly, the material in the book could have been better organized - themes too often intermingle in the chapters. Lastly, given that marketing to children is built on advertising, a crucial piece missing in this book is the lack of mention of any advertisements that targeted children, so the reader has an idea of the kind of advertising over the years that has targeted children.

By the way, did you know that "In 1978 the FTC issued a report contending that commercials targeting children under the age of eight were intrinsically unethical, since children of that age were developmentally unable to discern the subtle differences between fact and fantasy." Unsurprisingly, depressingly, "The investigation and the report were quashed by lobbying efforts on behalf of the advertising industry." [both page 55].

"Exploiting nostalgia was the advertisers' chief ploy. ... the toy industry understood the draw for parents of revisiting their own youth through their children." [page 56] What would have been very useful here, in this book, if the author had actually cited advertisements that did this.

"Babies, especially, and very young children are concrete thinkers. The classic separation anxiety that an eigh-month old baby feels when his primary caregiver leaves the room is rooted in the absolute certainty that she is really gone. [page 72]

Marketers and makers of children's toys all go for the 'acceptability halo' - "a marketer who establishes 'educational credit' can get away with anything." [page 3]

GenX-ers are dealt with in some detail in the book, across several chapters.
"Though the Gen-X mother may say she doesn't care how smart her children are, her spending patterns tell a different story. ... will even lie about fast-tracking their babies." [page 65]

"When asked, as late as 2004, what guiding principles its producers used to design developmentally appropriate TV for infants, a spokeswoman for Baby Einstein replied, 'We're just really good at seeing the world from a baby's point of view.'" [page 86]

A member of the AAP's communications committee (American Association of Pediatrics) had this to say: "There is no excuse for targeting children under two. They should not be watching television, and to target them with a show is immoral." [page 87]

"No legitimate academic research ever showed that Teletubbies was developmentally sound for babies or toddlers." [page 89]

"... toddlers were able to learn from events easily through live demonstrations, or what they believed were live demonstrations, but not when they knowingly viewed the same event via a symbolic medium, such as television." [page 92]

"... watching Sesame Street was 'negatively related' to expressive language use... Teletubbies was negatively related to both vocabulary size and expressive language use ... Barney and Friends was positively related to expressive language use and positively related to vocabulary size ... "

In 2005 an article published in the American Behavioral Scientist by Anderson, a PhD in developmental psychology, had this to say, "... With the exception of [one finding], there is very little evidence that children under two learn anything from television. The evidence indicates that learning from television by very young children is poor and that exposure to television is associated with relatively poor outcomes." [page 101]

Feeding children into the advertising and marketing grinder has consequences also, as one would expect. Take the 'Disney Princess' brand for example.
"One reason for launching Disney Princess was, naturally, to extend the retail life of each character." [page 137]
"... toddler girls didn't want to look like just any fancy Cindrella; they wanted to look like the Disney Cindrella." [page 139]
".. irony attended the marriage of KGOY and Cindrella ... Disney's Cindrella was emerging as the polar opposite of the orignal ... Cinderella causes some some young devotees to behave more like her wicked stepsisters. ... two and three-year old girls competed on the basis of who had the prettier or greater number of accessories..." [page 140]

Finally, sample this: "It's good for kids to learn how to manipulate - that's how you get ahead in this world." - per Rachel Geller, big honcho at the Geppetto Group, a New York based marketing firm.

20 pages of notes, and 10 pages of bibliography - fodder for further reading if one is so inclined, ending with a 12 page index.