As someone who is as immune to advertising as one gets, I find your post intriguing, and I feel like asking what is probably a naive question: can’t you just not buy the stuff? Where does that break down?
Not that I can't understand, but that's terrible neglect. Saying no is difficult but it's the parents' duty, same as many other difficult things.
Personally I also sometimes make the "mistake" of letting my kid pick a toy, snack, t-shirt, and forgetting that she'll pick cheap colorful junk every single time.
If that's the expected outcome, it's already lost.
...and forgetting that she'll pick cheap colorful junk every single time.
Still better than expensive colorless junk :)
Exactly, be on-call, have 20 minutes to get home to deal with an alert, while at the same time trying to get a toddler to comply, it's not exactly the ideal situation for making sane choices.
I am insanely impressed by anyone who regardless of how their day have been can stick to a rule of always making the correct choices and never giving in. I haven't personally meet anyone like that yet.
Hmm, I'm not sure anyone said it was easy to say "no" to your kids. What they're instead saying is that it's often your duty as a parent.
Shopping addiction. There's a lot of info about that. Happens both in general, people that buys tons of assorted junk, and in niche hobbies like wristwatches, garments, shoes, perfumes, cars or car models.
Over time the market adapted to a two tier system, low quality and low prices or high quality, and high prices (sometimes high prices and low quality). The entire middle tier disappeared, to even if I wanted a slightly higher quality steak or shirt, I can't buy it, because it doesn't exists, and I'm priced out of the high quality tier.