I remember once as a young child throwing a tantrum because my mother would not let me go with my older brother and his friend to Tastee Freeze. Eventually, my mother relented and off I went.
That event stuck with me all these years because it was one of the only times I can remember my mother giving in to a sulking, sobbing child who was misbehaving to try to get his way. Otherwise, the consistent lesson from my parents was that, in life, you don’t get everything you want.
Yes, that was a long time ago, but parents are still in charge of their children, or at least they are supposed to be.
In San Francisco, a judge has dismissed (thankfully) a proposed class-action lawsuit aimed at stopping McDonald’s from stuffing their Happy Meals with toys. The Center for Science in the Public Interest brought the suit, claiming that McDonald’s uses unfair and deceptive marketing to sell to children.
"McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children," said CSPI litigation director Stephen Gardner. "McDonald’s use of toys undercuts parental authority and exploits young children’s developmental immaturity–all this to induce children to prefer foods that may harm their health."
So, in Gardner’s view, McDonald’s is the equivalent of a pervert in the schoolyard? Good Lord.
CSPI, when it announced its suit in 2010, found a limp-noodle parent to reinforce its argument. Sheila Nesbitt, mother of a six-year-old boy and three-year-old girl, said, "McDonald’s makes my job as a parent more difficult. They market cheap toys that appeal to kids and it works. My kids always want to go to McDonald’s because of the toys."
So, Nesbitt is powerless against mind-numbing advertisements that turn children into McDonald’s drones? I wonder what Christmas is like at the Nesbitt household.
Meanwhile, some parents in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn are objecting to ice cream vendors in the local park. It started when one woman posted on a blog that she was forced to leave the park with a crying four-year-old because she wouldn’t buy her child ice cream.
Another parent weighed in on the blog in support. "I should not have to fight with my children every warm day on the playground just so someone can making a living. I, too, was at the 9th Street Playground on Monday, and one of the vendors just handed my four-year-old an ice cream cone. I was furious."
A father added to the blog: "I can say no to them at seven years old, but not at four. I sympathize with the moms."
Of course it can be hard to say no to children, and sometimes even good parents give in when they shouldn’t. But experts agree that children have to learn at an early age that they cannot have everything they want.
"It’s an understatement to say that we’re living in an overindulgent society," says child therapist Jill MacDonald. "To many, MORE is always better. However, if this is true then there will never be enough, because someone will always have more than you."
Parents have a tough job, especially today when there are more temptations and distractions for children, but blaming McDonald’s or the ice cream man rather than saying no is a denial of parental responsibilities and a search for a convenient scapegoat.