Newspaper Page Text
Thursday, March 25, 1999
The Southern Cross, Page 5
Everyday Graces
“Is anyone else bothered by this?”
By Mary Hood Hart
very now and then, I read a
news article that infuriates
me, but the article isn’t intended
to arouse my ire, it’s designed to
enlighten readers about current
trends. This sort of article, when
reporting on a trend I find
appalling, makes me wonder if
I’m the only reader in America
who thinks the trend is crazy.
(I’m not talking about tattoos
and body piercing. I’m referring
to practices common to main
stream America.)
For example, I have long been
disturbed by the common practice of allowing
high school seniors to take unchaperoned, coed
excursions (often to exotic locales) to celebrate
graduation.
I can’t believe sane parents permit this. (I have
known several of these parents, and they are very
nice people who love their kids.) They tell me
that one day, under pressure, I may change my
mind about these graduation trips. My oldest is a
high school sophomore, and I can’t imagine giv
ing in to such a request. She knows better than
even to ask.
I also can’t believe sane parents permit their
teens to stay overnight in motel rooms and rental
homes on prom night, in groups of unchaperoned
couples. Maybe I am hopelessly old-fashioned.
Maybe I have my head in the sand. But I can’t
believe what some intelligent, well-intentioned
parents are willing to allow.
I’m not referring to parents who are coping with
rebellious children, who constantly test their par
ents’ authority. I feel for these parents. At least,
they are trying to do the right thing,
even though their children, in
rebelling, make that very difficult.
The parents who buckle under pres
sure and give approval to activities
that are clearly misguided are the
parents I can’t understand.
The other morning, I picked up the
paper and became infuriated again,
this time over an business article
about children’s purchasing power.
It’s a subject I’ve written about
before, but I’ve become increasingly
disturbed because the practice contin
ues to go unchecked.
According to a Jessica Guynn
author of the Knight Ridder piece “Offspring
influencing more purchases,” children’s income
has been growing at the rate of 20 percent a year
for the past five years. Kids spend 23.5 billion
dollars of their own money every year. They also
spend $118 billion of their parents’ money, and
parents spend $300 billion just on their kids.
Naturally, with all this money revolving around
youngsters, marketers are targeting children
relentlessly.
James U. McNeal, a marketing professor at
Texas A & M University, addresses this trend: “I
don’t know of any consumer goods industry that
doesn’t target children. They have all of their pur
chases ahead of them. Any company that doesn’t
would find themselves out of competitive step
with those companies that do.” According to
Guynn, progressive companies “conduct focus
groups and dispatch scores of market researchers
to figure out what makes kids buy. Some are even
experimenting with kids’ credit cards to gather
information about kids and develop ties to them.”
Is anyone else bothered by this? Will parents
permit their children’s privacy to be invaded by
allowing them to use credit cards designed to cre
ate spending profiles and “develop ties” to mar
keters?
Does anyone besides me long for the good old
days, not so long ago, when children were depen
dent on their parents to make spending decisions?
When kids weren’t viewed, according to McNeal,
as “a future market of goods and services?”
What makes this crass manipulation of children
even more frightening is that parents, those
entrusted to protect them, seem unconcerned.
Indeed, what matters most is that kids be happy,
regardless.
In the article, Cathy Estrada, the mother of four
boys, confesses she allowed her 4-year-old son to
choose the color of the family’s new van. And she
admits that she and her husband “gear our [spend
ing] choices to what is going to be fun for our kids.
We are pretty driven by what would be enjoyable
for them.”
Of course, the Estradas are not alone. A genera
tion of parents is working long hours and having
fewer children just so they can provide the money
and goods they think make for happiness. Out of
guilt for not being available to spend time with
their kids, they try to compensate with more “fun”.
In the meantime, American children are growing
up lonely, alienated, depressed. I’m convinced that
children are quick to realize that all this stuff — all
this buying power — cannot compensate for time,
attention, and guidance from Mom and Dad. And
these kids would be deeply grateful if their parents
came to their senses and realized it, too.
Mary Hood Hart lives with her husband and
four children in Sunset Beach, N.C.
Mary Hood Hart
Feeding
By Father Michael H. Smith
S everal times when I have been
in the midst of preparing or
serving Communion, I have noticed
a mother discreely breast-feeding
her baby. Always it has moved me
to realize how God does feed his
people in all the many and various
way we need to be fed. Everyone
who is helping feed the hungry is
doing the work of our Father and is
promised a reward on the Last Day
(see Matthew 25: 35)
In the life of the church we often
focus on those special times when
we gather food for the poor or pre
pare a special meal for the needy at
Thanksgiving. But feeding the hun
gry goes on everyday in all our
homes, restaurants and fast food
places. However our actual eating is
the last stagfe In a long chain of
events involving a vast network of
people — all just doing their ordi
nary daily work
Making Connections
the hungry ensures human survival
We hear a lot
today about the
problems of farm
ers. These can seem
remote if our own
family and friends
are not involved.
But if we did not
have the most pro
ductive farmers in
the world, our food
would cost much
more, or be scarce
and difficult to find
as it is in many parts
of the world. Never
take farmers for
granted, nor those who work with
them to plant, tend and harvest the
crops. Without them none of the
hungry anywhere could be fed.
Most farming today could not be
carried on without some very help
ful machinery. So our getting fed is
also dependent on those who design,
build and market
this indispensable
equipment. Also
involved are the
research scientists
and experimental
farms who are
constantly trying
to develop better
seeds and plants to
improve the quali
ty and yields of
our crops.
Since the great
majority of us do
not live on or near
farms, we depend
on networks of trucks, trains and
planes to get the food from the
farmers to us. But most of this food
does not come directly to us. It
stops and gets processed to make it
easier and quicker to use. Visitors to
our country, especially from less
developed nations, cannot believe
the vast array of food products in
our huge supermarkets.
In our own country now we have
a whole other group of people also
participating in this great work, in
jobs that seem to be very humble
and that usually pay only minimum
wage or a little more. These are all
the many cooks, waiters and wait
resses, dishwashers and cashiers
who staff our seemingly endless
profusion of restaurants and fast
food establishments.
All these many, many people —
whom we often take for granted —
are involved in one of God most
basic and important tasks: seeking
that all his human children are well
fed and able to maintain health and
strength. On them depends the very
survival of human life.
Father Michael H. Smith, V.F., is pastor
of Holy Redeemer Parish, McRae, and
Saint Mark, Eastman.
Father Michael H. Smith