My mom recently watched a documentary entitled “The Corporation” and sent me a few choice factoids from the film to share with all of you:

Marketers play to the developmental levels of a child in their marketing strategies

They hire child psychologists to devise ways to sell

They spend $12 billion a year on research designed to identify how best to sell toys to kids

The goal is to create good, lifelong consumers

The most useful “tool” thay have come up with is to get the children to nag their parents

They do the same things for adults but it just seems less insidious

Mom added “but it isn’t!” to that last item, but I do think it’s less insidious — because while many adults do know better, some have the tools to know better, and only a few perhaps do not — in the case of children, they absolutely do not have the tools to understand how they are being manipulated, or to even remotely be able to step back from the “You must have this!” message and apply any critical thinking to it whatsoever.

I have many times referred to the book “Consuming Kids” as being the Red Pill Bible — and this book is indeed one of the catalysts for starting this whole thing in the first place — yet I haven’t gone into it very much here. But despite all our talk of food and plastic water bottles, this is really the meat of the message that we want to share: that our culture is so heavily defined by consumerism and advertising that’s it’s often hard to sift out the “culture” (norms, customs, values, history) from the brands. And this branded world we live in is completely manufactured, designed to manipulate, and does not need to be a “normal” part of a child’s upbringing. It does not have to be acceptable to us as parents that our kids are pushed to consume something during every TV show, every day at school, and merely in the simple act of watching other kids play at the playground — walking billboards that kids often are.

What Mom picked out of “The Corporation” and chose to share is only the tip of the iceberg, but it does hone in on The Nag Factor. The commercials you see and the brand empires that exist in your kids’ lives are not the result of companies thinking, “Gosh, we have this really great product that we think will make kids soooo happy, and we just want to share it!” <Shrug, wince.> They are corporations interested in their bottom line: executive compensation packages, bonuses, dividends, stock prices, market share. And they will do really gross things to achieve that. Here are a few tidbits from Chapter 2 of “Consuming Kids” (“A Consumer in the Family: The Nag Factor and Other Nightmares”), italics mine:

Western Media International, a consumer research organization, put out a press release entitled: “The Fine Art of Whining: Why Nagging is a Kid’s Best Friend.” This release identifies which kinds of parents are most likely to give in to nagging: divorced parents and those with teenagers or very young children ranked highest. Are you one of those? Then you are a marketer’s dream. The release states: “Nagging was successful in four out of ten trips to ‘entertainment establishments like The Discovery Zone and Chuck E. Cheese,’ in one out of three trips to a fast food restaurant, and in three out of every ten home video sales.”

A study called “The U.S. Market for Infant, Toddler and Preschool Products” found that “the impact of children’s nagging is assessed as up to 46 percent of sales in key businesses that target children.” That would translate to about half of the children’s products in your house being there because you were nagged for them.

Another study revealed that moms reported an average of about 4.7 nags per day.

In a recent survey of 750 kids aged 12-17, it was reported that on average, kids ask nine times before their parents give in and let them have what they want. Eleven percent of 12 and 13 year olds reported nagging parents more than fifty times for one specific product or another – and all of these were products they had seen advertised.

WMI divides parents into four categories:

“Indulgers” are parents who basically give in to their kids’ every whim.

“Kids’ Pals” are parents who want to have fun, too, just like their kids.

“Conflicted” describes single and/or divorced parents, whose purchasing behavior is influenced by guilt.

“Bare Necessities” parents are those who seem able to fend off their kids’ pleas and ultimately make all of the purchasing decisions on their own. These parents are identified as having the least stressed lives: they are the most affluent and the least likely to have babies or toddlers in the house.

(So wow, they even peg we “Bare Necessities” parents in contrast to parents who “want to have fun, too” — as if the two are mutually exclusive! This just shows you how deep into the consumer mentality the researchers are themselves.)

And that, folks, probably only covers a fraction of the findings, slicing and dicing of your lifestyle and level of guilt, and manipulation of the psychology of your child that happens with that $12 billion in research dollars referenced in “The Corporation.”

Susan Linn writes:

“By encouraging children to nag, and by bombarding them with messages that material goods are the key to happiness, the marketing industry is taking advantage of parents’ innate desire for their children to be happy.”

So it really isn’t the kids that are being manipulated, after all — it is us: because we’re carrying the purse, and the guilt. But the marketers don’t even have the balls to go to us directly: they get at us through our kids, who we love and want to be happy. That is the definition of insidious. And calling nagging “a child’s best friend”? That’s the definition of gross. And just who are these faceless perpetrators, pushers of the “consume and be happy” mentality, opportunists of our children’s guile, deviously using them to climb into our wallets? Fill in the blank with any beloved children’s brand you can think of: Disney. Nickelodeon. Barbie. McDonald’s. Justice. Nintendo. Abercrombie. Does that put things into a little perspective?

I’ll share more of what I deemed underline-worthy from subsequent chapters, but these are not the Cliffs Notes people: you still need to read the book!

– Red Pill Mama

I’ve now watched Food, Inc. — and I’m sorry I was so flip about it when I posted on Monday. Overall, right now, I can only characterize the way I feel as weird. I feel weird. Creepy and weird. Yet at the same time, I also feel grateful, galvanized and newly motivated. Grateful that despite what the documentary has shown me is going on in this country, this is still a country where we can be shown what is going on in this country. The only reason companies like Tyson, Smithfield and Monsanto are getting away with what they are getting away with, and that former agribusiness executives are finding themselves in high positions within our food regulatory agencies and Supreme Court, is simply because not enough people know, not enough people care, and not enough people are doing anything about it. But as Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Farms, pointed out in the film, the market responds to consumers (referring to Wal-Mart carrying organic products and RBST-free milk). So I know, despite how bad (really bad) things are right now, that things can change.

Galvanized and newly motivated? Well of course. In The Red Pill Parents, I have a forum — smaller at this time than I would like it to be, but growing nevertheless — to help alleviate the “not enough people know” part. I am also galvanized and newly motivated to continue to educate myself about, and refine, my food buying choices. Just when I think I’m doing pretty well, I realize I still have a ways to go, but that’s OK: the more we know, the more we know how much we still need to learn, and this learning process will ultimately fully satisfy the second tenet of Red Pill Thinking, because it will ultimately lead me to make the decisions that are best for myself, my family, humanity in general and the planet at large — since all parties involved in that statement are intimately interconnected. (I am also grateful for RPP, all its readers, and my ever-enthusiastic partner in this endeavor: Red Pill Papa.)

I’m relying on the fact that you all will have seen this film at some point (because you just bloody have to!), and so rather than trying to summarize or synopsis-ize or anything-ize it, I will simply share four quotes which I rewound multiple times in order to transcribe just right — because they are brilliant, profound, simple and complex at the same time, and must be fully ingested:

From Barbara Kowalcyk, food safety advocate and mother of Kevin Kowalcyk, who died a gruesome death at age 2 ½ from e. coli poisoning contracted from contaminated meat:

“We put faith in our government to protect us, and they are not protecting us at even the most basic level.”

From Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation:

“(Our) regulatory agencies are being controlled by the very companies that they’re supposed to be scrutinizing.”

From Joel Salatin, founder of Polyface Farms, where cows eat grass, poop on the grass, and mow the (naturally fertilized) grass, along with many other natural, completely logical farming processes:

“A culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure, and can be manipulated by whatever creative design humans can foist upon that critter, will probably view individuals within its community and other cultures in the community of nations with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling-type mentality.”

Yes, you may have to read that a few times, but it certainly spells out the larger social and planetary ramifications of what has become our norm in food production — because it’s about way more than just the public health.

Watching the film from the PBS.org site as I did, I was also treated to Notes on Milk, a condensed (I just said condensed: HA!) version of a larger documentary about the milk industry.

From Rob Moore, a dairy farmer who lets his cows stay outside (where they belong), only produces milk seasonally (because cows naturally only calve and produce milk in the spring) and is continually laughed at by his status quo dairy-farming neighbors:

“When you’re brought up a certain way, you forget about what makes sense and you just do what you’re taught.”

I have been feeling rather content over the fact that my kids drink only milk or water on a regular basis — just as my pediatrician recommends — as though I could sort of check it off the list as being something I had conquered or accomplished. But then, the unbelievably obvious realization comes to me via this film, that milk — just like produce — is meant to be a seasonal product. Like most animals, cows breed and calve in the spring. If we respected the natural order of things (like allowing cows to poop on and mow the very grass that their bodies require), we would only have milk when it’s in season. Forty-two years on this planet and I never realized this before. “When you’re brought up a certain way, you forget about what makes sense.” Now, the whole idea of my two little human offspring drinking milk from a cow forced to breed out of season, kept inside, fed grain and separated from her calves, seems nothing if not downright unnatural and wrong. Whose idea was this, anyway? Oh yeah: Got Milk? I’m sure the full version of this story, the documentary Milk in the Land: Ballad of an American Drink, will point out even more unnatural aspects of this practically holy American dietary staple.

OK, so I lied, I have one more quote, from the filmmakers themselves:

“You can vote to change this system, three times a day.”

Condensed again (because I’m enjoying using that word), here’s what you can do (your “4 Steps” are):

Buy Local

Buy Organic

Buy In Season

Join a CSA (or something I’ve just become aware of in my area: a service that offers a weekly delivery from the state farmers market), preferably from an organic farm.

But even if it’s not an organic farm, doing this will make a huge difference. I believe it was Michael Pollan in The Omnivore’s Dilemma who said that if every American family ate just one locally sourced meal a week, it would turn agribusiness on its head (that is not a direct quote, mind you). Don’t know what a CSA is? Visit LocalHarvest.org to learn more about CSAs and even find one in your area.)

And you know what else I’m going to do? Three boycotts: No more Tyson, no more Smithfield, no more Monsanto (this last one will take some work, but I’m willing to do some research, which of course I will share with you.) I’m not suggesting that we should believe absolutely everything we read or see (and indeed, the homespun banjo music contrasted with the Danny Elfman-esque creepy soundtrack to this film was certainly intended to influence our emotions), but given all the corroborating evidence that I’ve come across that tells the same story about these companies, combined with the fact that they refuse to be interviewed, I think retracting my dollars from their coffers is a pretty reasonable response.

The hardest part of this film to watch was the segment on Barbara Kowalcyk and the death of her son. We all have children in our lives that we love and cherish, or we would not be writing or reading this. As of the filming of this documentary, Kevin’s Law — a bill created in response to his death, which would actually give the USDA some authority to protect public health — had yet to be passed, seven years after his death. Add the two years since the film was made, and that’s nine years. After all this time, is it closer to being passed? No.: Kevin’s Law, H.R. 2203: The Meat and Poultry Pathogen Reduction and Enforcement Act, has been “cleared from the books.”

So here’s the “1 Promise”: I promise I’ll look into this further, and see if anything can be done. Perhaps the attention that Food, Inc. has brought to Kevin’s Law has raised it from the dead. Stay tuned.

— Red Pill Mama

Last year I purchased a kids’ movie (rated PG for “momentary language”) based on a book that I read and loved as a child, and have read over and over with my daughter, especially. I figured the movie was based on such a fantastic book that it was a pretty sure bet, and in general I handle the language question by simply telling my kids “that’s a grown-up word” and that they should never use it, upon pain of death or removal of all Legos/art supplies (half kidding). I sat down to watch it with my kids (ages 5 and 7), and here’s what we saw:

Within the first twenty minutes alone, we watched a little girl’s frightening, dramatic midnight ride to the hospital; we met a sweet, sick old woman who was also staying in the hospital, whose room proves to be empty the next day because she had died; and our young female heroine is driven home from the hospital next to a live chicken, who she is harshly informed will be that night’s dinner.

Next we meet the “bad guy” who is sneaking around taking photos (to dark, dramatic music, naturally); a group of girls who couldn’t be older than ten talking about another boy having “charisma”; we see some classic snarky (dare I say bitchy?) ‘mean girl’ behavior; as well as harsh taunting during the dinner scene, where one girl eats the chicken (as the rest refuse), and where the presiding adult says nothing.

Later, we have an adult drinking alcohol; one of said under-ten girls doing the arms-around-the-back mock make-out maneuver while wearing the aforementioned boozing adult’s bra; the “bad guy” lasciviously ogling a nun; another under-ten girl flirting with the charismatic boy; three uses of the word “idiot”; the boy dangling a live, struggling mouse in front of a snake; and a shot of a little guillotine intended to decapitate the doomed mouse.

Next, a little girl falls into a river (with lots of splashing and struggling and gulping and again, the dramatic music); there’s a scene with a very “Coming to America” sort of stereotypical African couple; then one where an old man grabs the butt of a young female Asian performer. Then our young heroine and the charismatic boy are kidnapped and tied up in a locked truck during a thunderstorm. It goes on from there, but that’s probably enough, huh? My kids had thrown in the towel about the time of the plunge into the river, and I’m sorry I let them get that far. I was so flabbergasted that I continued watching and took notes.

Have you guessed the movie yet? Yes folks, this is the film adaptation of Ludwig Bemelmans’ beloved Madeline. ‘Adaptation’ is a bit of a stretch, methinks. I think they took a sweet, innocent book and added every lowest common denominator trick they could to over-dramatize, sexualize and scarify a mildly dramatic story, which if you ask me, could still have been interesting, engaging and funny. (Frances McDormand was awesome, of course.) So how would a Red Pill Parent know what this movie had in store for their kids?

Well, Turner Classic Movies calls it an “endearing family film.” Netflix states, “This movie is: Feel-Good, Goofy.” The MPAA rated it PG for “momentary language.” Hmm. OK, so what I’m wondering is, where’s the part about death, bullying, alcohol, animal cruelty, racial and gender stereotyping, misogyny, sexual abuse and kidnapping? My kids saw things in this endearing family film that I hope they never see again, and if they do, I hope they never model and/or tolerate. Plus, the film completely passed over so many opportunities to guide kids in some of these areas. Death is not something we should shield our children from, but when Madeline finds out the old woman died, she reacts stoically, with not a tear or a question for Miss Clavel that kids can identify with or learn anything from. The film very pointedly does not show Madeline’s scar, which is odd, since this is such a defining element of the original story. By what logic does this film illicit fear and suspense with an ambulance ride, but then deliberately choose not to show the undramatic realities of a hospital stay, such as a scar, and an IV? There’s nothing wrong with children knowing where their food comes from, but do Madeline (and the movie’s viewers) need to find out that chicken is indeed chicken with the single barked word: “Dinner!”? Do we really want to condone taunting and mean girl behavior by showing a scene where an adult is present but only shrugs and shakes her head? Does any child need to witness a man undressing a woman with his eyes, or grabbing her butt? What possible narrative requirement does this serve in a movie adapted from a children’s book, and meant to appeal to that book’s same audience?

I thought Beverly Hills Chihuahua might be cute, too. And I saw The Rescuers as a child and thought my kids might enjoy that as well. Once again: lessons learned! And the biggest lesson is this: MPAA movie ratings don’t even tell half the story — maybe about 5% of it.

Fortunately, there are other organizations that provide a bit more information — but you definitely have to seek them out, and even they might not catch everything you’re concerned about. And of course, what you see in the newspaper listings or on movie listing sites is only going to be the MPAA Ratings — which won’t cut it if you really want to know what kind of content is in these films. It’s in the best interest of the movie industry to keep films open to as many viewers as possible, so they’re not going to take a particularly exclusionary stance with respect to age-appropriateness ratings. Plus, it’s arguable that our culture (including its children) is so desensitized to violence, overt sexuality and hyper-drama that it barely registers — it’s just considered normal and entertaining. I think a reversal of this trend would result in a far more gentle, respectful society, but that’s another post (or twelve). Suffice it to say, those of us who do not wish for our children to be exposed or desensitized to this type of content face an uphill battle, and must rely on resources beyond the MPAA ratings to help us find stuff we’d be happy to let our kids watch. Though not ideal (in my humble opinion), here are some other resources. (Please note, I saved the best for last, if you want to skip ahead.)

Parents Television Council — Their Movie Ratings are broken down by Sex, Violence, Language and Behavior, with details for each of these areas. Their database is small, however, and did not include Madeline or The Rescuers. In their review of Beverly Hills Chihuahua, the Behavior category said “None” — where I, on the other hand, thought all the pool-side Hollywood-sassy, blingy-rich consumerist behavior was shallow, inane and disgusting.

Kids In Mind — This site, which rates on a 1-10 scale for Sex & Nudity, Violence & Gore and Profanity, appears to be struggling, and admits that any reviews prior to 1998 will not be as stringent as after. Madeline was released in 1998, so I don’t know if their review was written before or after that change. In any case, again we have notification of the usual offensivities (my word), but nothing about how elements of Madeline, for instance, can traumatize your kids into a fortnight’s worth of nightmares, or model and therefore condone worse behavior than that displayed by that rotten 4th grader that rides in the back of their bus. This site had a good bit of elaboration about the specifics of Beverly Hills Chihuahua, however —I give them props for that. And they relate the “message” of films. In BHC’s case: “Discover your integrity and that of your pets. Pet ownership is a lasting commitment that requires research and thought.” Intended message, yes. But the overall message I received? It’s fun to be rich and silly, and my mom must think I won’t be scared by a dogfight.

Parent Previews — Hmm. Well, considering this is what they had to say about Madeline, I’m not an immediate fan: “This film … through an intelligent script and compelling images of Paris and France, does a remarkable job of making the little Madeline look and feel like the story from which she was born.” This may not be their editorial, of course. Their reviews are simply plot synopses, but the Content Details get into the nitty gritty a bit more. Still, the categories are for Violence, Sexual Content, Language and Drugs/Alcohol: not a comprehensive list of things to watch out for, if you ask me. There was no review for The Rescuers.

Common Sense Media — In general, I love Common Sense Media, as they are a great resource about the whole relationship between media and children, with lots of research and coverage of all types of media, not just movies. It’s a definite Red Pill Parent bookmark. However, their movie review section still left me unsatisfied. A section called What Parents Need to Know reads: “… there’s a kidnapping that younger children might find scary, and the overall absence of parents, Pepito’s parents are loving but rather neglectful, and Madeline is an orphan.” Again, as if that’s all you need to know. This does go beyond the typical bounds of Sex, Profanity & Violence, but still does not tell me what I want to know.

Screen It! — My favorite of all the sites I visited and reviewed in this category (for movie reviewing purposes), Screen It! offers 15 content categories, which for each film are designated with None, Minor, Moderate, Heavy and Extreme, with a section on who the film’s role models are (interesting) as well as an Our Word To Parents section. Though, big surprise, they still didn’t entirely agree with my own assessment of Madeline, they do what they should do, which is not simply to agree with me, but rather to really lay out all that a parent might object to in a film shown to their kids, beyond the usual Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll — oops, wrong topic — I mean Sex, Violence & Profanity offensivity categories. This site gets my Red Pill Parent stamp of approval.

If you find any other resources that prove helpful in this regard, do let us know.

Happy Viewing!

— Red Pill Mama

It seems, lately, that every time I sit down to post I feel like Tippi Hedren in The Birds, frantically swatting away at all the competing topic birds flying around my head. But today, there is a very large, very insistent bird on my shoulder with its talons dug in, that’s been pecking away at my cranium like a ticking clock. Three words: Made In China. Blame Red Pill Papa’s post about cadmium in children’s jewelry made in China — but here we go:

The equation goes like this: Americans love cheap. China makes cheap (for reasons I would need to devote an entire post to). Therefore, Americans buy Chinese. Admittedly, not just Chinese — but the pervasiveness of “Made in China” is undeniable. Even my 7-year-old looks at stuff now and with a dejected “awww” says, “Oh, it’s made in China.” It’s on absolutely everything — and we buy it. Yet we choose to do so at a time when the U.S. unemployment rate is 10%, our national debt is astronomical (and much of it is held by China), we’ve had both a recent lead scare and a recent cadmium scare from China, and though we in the U.S. are attempting to get ourselves in line, environmentally speaking, developing nations are not interested: we got filthy rich developing our countries to the detriment of the planet, so now they want their turn. And what is most of what’s Made in China made out of? Plastic. Flimsy and breakable, its life-span as a useful item is limited, but it’s life-span as a discarded bit of consumerist pollution is eternal. As Alan Weisman titled one of his chapters in The World Without Us, Polymers are Forever. As in, they never go away. They sit in landfills, clog rivers, kill wildlife and there’s a collection of plastic debris currently floating in the ocean that is the size of the African continent. Um, do we really need more?

So why are we so slow to put two and two together on this, people? Well, I think I know why: we all think we don’t have enough money. We all think that the best way to consume is to save. And it seems that we think saving doesn’t come from not spending or not buying, but rather from spending less when you buy something. I just saw a commercial for a store that promoted the “high of the deal” as a benefit to shopping there, as though getting something cheap will give you the same endorphin rush as a brisk run, a hit off a crack pipe, or eating a habanero pepper, for cryin’ out loud. And so we all think we are entitled to spend as little as possible on all the crap that we want, no matter the consequences.

I’ve already mentioned some of the economic and environmental consequences, though there are many more. But also, as parents, by continuing to consume as though we are entitled to cheap, what are we modeling for our kids? That each item that we purchase (and its price) exists in a vacuum, in and of itself, and we need not allow any other considerations to enter our minds or test our conscience?

I firmly believe that every dollar is a vote. When you buy cheap imported crap, you are casting a powerful vote for a) crap, b) other countries’ economies vs. your own, c) environmental degradation, and in supporting the Chinese economy, you support d) its regime: communism, human rights abuses and all. And don’t you think our government might exert some muscle over China (tariffs, import restrictions, etc.) if it could? But it can’t: because they own too much of us. What would happen if China got pissed off and called in all that debt? We shudder to think. And so our government will, most likely, do nothing, even though severely curtailing imported goods is the most obvious remedy to our economic crisis. And so we walk away from our foreclosed homes and go shop at Wal-Mart.

The painful truth is, the things we purchase do not exist in a vacuum. My kids already understand that there are a lot of people in our country who don’t have jobs, and are therefore having trouble paying for their homes and food. Since I began mumbling “Ugh, Made in China” when I turn things upside down, my 7-year-old now does the same thing, and she completely understands the connection. We look for things that say “Made in USA.” They are not easy to find, and they are much more difficult to find than even five years ago (I bought an L.L. Bean raincoat for my husband for Christmas; it was made in Bangladesh. L.L. Bean?!?!) But when we find those three words, we jump up and down and shout like we’d found one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets. We discuss materials: if something is made of cloth, or metal, or wood, we know it will last, and it will eventually “biodegrade” (a new vocabulary word), and go back into the earth. But if it’s plastic, we know it will probably break, and will eventually end up as trash, and pollution.

Just so you know my horse is no higher than yours, I will admit that a sweep of my house would reveal plenty of offending merchandise (starting with the L.L. Bean raincoat!), despite my having made a concerted effort to avoid plastic for years, as much for aesthetic reasons as anything else. My Volkswagen is the ultimate offense — but maybe like you, my awakening to the truth (and my responsibility) has been a process, fairly recently begun, and viewed through the magnifying glass of our 2008/2009 economy. But awareness is the first step toward change. And building this awareness into our childrens’ minds is a guaranteed step toward change. My kids recently heard me ask a sales guy in Bed Bath & Beyond if they carried any lines that were made in the U.S. (the answer was no). If we ponder, question, ask, seek, and make decisions based on what’s best not just for our checkbook, but for the greater good, they will follow our example. And the prospect of what they might do with that level of consciousness is exciting, to say the least!

Let’s end our love affair with cheap goods, and instead look more lovingly upon good goods, while involving our kids in our own transformation. And when we can’t find any good goods? That’s when a little activism is needed. And that I will save for another post.

— Red Pill Mama

Anastasia (faithful reader, commentor and Red Pill Parent) brought up a really interesting point after reading my “It’s Time to Fall Out of Love With Cheap” post. She writes:

It’s difficult to control children’s possessions when well-meaning family and friends give gifts that you wouldn’t buy for your children (i.e., cheap plastic).

I think this applies not only to cheap plastic, but as thinking Red Pill Parents, many of us understand the ramifications and underlying messages in branded or character-based toys, for instance, or dislike many popular toys that might serve to reinforce some gender stereotyping we’re not keen on buying into — or any number of other things. But most of all, maybe we just don’t want our kids getting so much more stuff that they don’t need, won’t really appreciate, or won’t really benefit from — and which just reinforces the whole consumerism/stuff mentality that it’s good to just have more stuff! Not to mention that we, as parents, will either be a) stepping around all that stuff, b) picking up all that stuff, or c) nagging our kids to pick up all that stuff and put it away somewhere.

Which brings me to the question begged by Anastasia’s post: Is it OK to let potential gift-givers know what is — and is not — OK for your kids?

The first birthday party I ever threw was a huge eye opener for me. Or maybe a slap in the face would be a better analogy. Or maybe a slap in the eye, combined with a piano falling on my head. My son was turning 3, and my daughter 5, and I started out just inviting a few people, but then I realized that so-and-so knows so-and-so, and they might feel slighted by not being invited, and she’s got a big brother and he’s got a little sister, and how do I deal with that, and finally I just said f&%# it, I’ll just invite every darn kid I know and we’ll have one big fabulous mob. Well, I ended up with about 30 kids. No biggie, it was a home party in the back yard, no meal was served, and it was fabulous, except for that part about being so busy you never have a chance to just hang out with your guests. But as people arrived and the gifts started piling up in the dining room, I started to feel a little queasy. I expected the kids would bring a gift for the child they knew, but generous and sweet as all these families were, and me being a complete birthday party noob, I was surprised to discover that even if they didn’t know both of my children, they bought them each a gift. And so the pile grew: it was outrageous. Some of the invited kids came with siblings, some didn’t, but almost every family brought two gifts. At the end of the party, I was horrified. Do you think I’m crazy for being horrified at such an outpouring of generosity? I’ll grant that this is entirely possible, but here’s what I was thinking:

#1: My kids are going to think it’s always supposed to be like this!

#2: What in god’s name is in all those bags?

Despite cringing through the hours of gift-opening that ensued and trying to figure out where to put everything, it all turned out OK. I learned the very valuable lesson that other parents don’t necessarily share my views — nor much of conventional parenting wisdom, for that matter — on what’s appropriate or beneficial for kids, yet at the same time, I was absolutely bowled over by their thoughtfulness and generosity. Thankfully, despite this experience, neither of my kids has ever said, “Is that it?” after their subsequent and far less lucrative birthday celebrations, and if there was anything truly heinous opened after that first party, it most likely — and very mysteriously — disappeared. (Note to self: ask my mom where the annual three laundry baskets full of Christmas gifts from Grandma and Grandpa went, ’cause they sure as hell didn’t end up in our rooms.) So Whew! crisis averted. But even since then, there have still been some sub-optimal additions to our household in the toy department. So what can a well-meaning Red Pill Parent do, who just wants what they fervently believe to be best for their kids, but who does not wish to offend or appear to be completely psychotic?

I thought of a couple of ideas. One would be asking that gifts be experiences, rather than things, like a free pass or ticket to a bowling alley, a puppet show performance, musical performance or museum, or a single horseback riding lesson — that sort of thing. (A little pricier in some cases, but maybe parents could share a gift experience.) That way, your child comes away with learning experiences, with the added benefit of the gifts being experienced over a delightfully spread out period time vs. all crammed into one day. Would this really be OK, or would it be presumptuous and greedy? Would it be OK to just say “We prefer no branded or character merchandise, nothing plastic or noisy, and please no weapons.”?

Or, to spin it more positively, would it be OK to say “Our child loves art supplies, dress-up pieces, building and creative toys, puzzles, books and nature discovery tools” for instance, as a way of saying what you do want, instead of what you don’t want?

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. I have pondered them for years, but have always ended up chickening out. As a parent frequently on the receiving end of invitations, however, I think I would welcome specific suggestions, and would certainly appreciate the boldness and vigilance of a parent who attempts to ‘steer’ my gift-purchasing toward something that really suits the party-throwing family’s interests and values. But that’s just me. What do you think?

— Red Pill Mama

Those of us who are diligently trying to make lifestyle and consumer choices that have a more positive impact on the environment and its inhabitants are, of course, always on the lookout for products that help us accomplish this goal. But advertising is advertising, and the ad agencies that design campaigns to convince us that Gatorade goes along with a healthy lifestyle and BP is all about sunflowers, are the same agencies that design campaigns to convince us that various products and companies are “green.”

Mother Nature Network just published a report about how Fiji Water is threatening to leave Fiji. The Fijian government wants to raise the taxes they charge Fiji Water to extract this pristine natural resource from their country and ship it all over the world, and Fiji Water doesn’t want to pay. This is interesting, and fairly unremarkable, but what I found in the article that was remarkable, was the extent to which Fiji has greenwashed consumers, even to the point of being invited into a place like the Ecco Ultra Lounge, an eco-conscious nightclub in LA which will offers complimentary valet parking to Priuses.

The MNN piece quotes a Mother Jones cover story dedicated to Fiji Waters’ greenwashing campaign:

Nowhere in Fiji Water’s glossy marketing materials will you find reference to the typhoid outbreaks that plague Fijians because of the island’s faulty water supplies; the corporate entities that Fiji Water has — despite the owners’ talk of financial transparency — set up in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg; or the fact that its signature bottle is made from Chinese plastic in a diesel-fueled plant and hauled thousands of miles to its eco-conscious consumers. And, of course, you won’t find mention of the military junta for which Fiji Water is a major source of global recognition and legitimacy.

As well as some of a 2007 article in Fast Company:

The label on a bottle of Fiji Water says “from the islands of Fiji.” Journey to the source of that water, and you realize just how extraordinary that promise is. From New York, for instance, it is an 18-hour plane ride west and south (via Los Angeles) almost to Australia, and then a four-hour drive along Fiji’s two-lane King’s Highway.

Every bottle of Fiji Water goes on its own version of this trip, in reverse, although by truck and ship. In fact, since the plastic for the bottles is shipped to Fiji first, the bottles’ journey is even longer. Half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is transportation — which is to say, it costs as much to ship Fiji Water across the oceans and truck it to warehouses in the United States than it does to extract the water and bottle it.

That is not the only environmental cost embedded in each bottle of Fiji Water. The Fiji Water plant is a state-of-the-art facility that runs 24 hours a day. That means it requires an uninterrupted supply of electricity — something the local utility structure cannot support. So the factory supplies its own electricity, with three big generators running on diesel fuel. The water may come from “one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth,” as some of the labels say, but out back of the bottling plant is a less pristine ecosystem veiled with a diesel haze.

So the point of all this? Of course, I hope you’ve ditched the bottled water habit. Need more reasons? Read our “Bottled Water and the Damage Done” article.

But most of all: be wary of greenwashing. Happy sunflower logos, the word “green,” the use of “eco-” and other such intended tree-hugger triggers are, in many cases, just like “a good source of calcium” written on a box of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs: smoke and mirrors, designed to entice you to fork over your cash to feed their bottom line. Read the labels, read the fine print, read the blogs, read the news and read whatever else you can get your hands on that will tell you the truth. Then vote with your wallet and shellack them into corporate oblivion.

— Red Pill Mama

Alas, school has ended for us here, so my morning walks to school with Lily are no more — for the moment. Though we did venture out one humid, sweaty morning to take a loop around the neighborhood, somehow it just wasn’t the same: it was not a lovely cool morning, we weren’t walking at the brisk pace required to get to school on time, and truthfully, we should have brought her brother along too (on school days, he was perfectly content to wave to us from the bus).

But on those cool, brisk mornings when we did walk, here’s what happened:

* We talked about god: what she thinks god is, what I think god is, what other people think god is. How god is all around us, and in us, and how god connects us all together.

* We ate honeysuckle nectar – from the same bush, every morning, like a small ritual.

* We stuck our noses in fragrant blooming gardenias and rolled our eyes at the sweet perfumy scent. Same for magnolias.

* We talked about the environment, prompted by the trash and recyclables we spotted along the way.

* We held hands, we sang, we greeted neighbors.

* Lily jumped down into and explored a culvert, invisible to us for years as we flew by in our car. We speculated about where the tunnel went after she could no longer follow along.

* We noticed dew drops on the backs of fallen leaves that looked like glass beads, sparkling in the sunshine, and looked for them every day. She commented on how the dew on the grass, when hit by the sun, sparkled like fairy jewels.

* We waved to friends as they pulled into the school in their moms’ cars.

* We had time for an unhurried, leisurely, kiss, hug and goodbye in the school lobby, I felt that my daughter had been properly delivered to school, and then I hoofed it back with my iPod at a more longer-legged pace, arriving worn ass out at home after a total of an hour and a half walk. (And yes, I lost a few pounds.)

You might be wondering when the rainbows and unicorns were going to enter the scene, but honestly, it was the sweetest, most open-eyed, one-on-one quality time I’ve spent with my daughter in a long, long time. I had nothing pulling at my attention (laundry, dishes, a schedule) but her, and there was nothing I could possibly have nagged her about (clean your room, brush your teeth, leave your brother alone, do your homework) other than to perhaps walk a tad bit faster. It was a little 45 minute vacation in the truest sense of the word. And we were doing it twice a week!

Long before Walk to School Day, and long before our bi-weekly girls’ walks, my friend and RPP contributor Out of the Blue wrote “A Suburban Mom Walks the Walk — Literally.” While her reasons and results were somewhat different than ours, I believe that shows what a universally good thing this simple idea is. While walking to school released her son’s restless energy and exercised her dogs, Lily and I obviously had a different, yet equally and fabulously beneficial, experience. I wonder what yours would be like.

I can’t wait to do it again — when it’s cooler.

Happy Walkin’,

Red Pill Mama