paradise lost

walt disney comp. and some media investment management group have conducted a survey and declared that in india “children up to the age of 12 are now influencing purchasing decisions in categories like cars, computers and even insurance.” which is to say, instead of peddling candies and cookies, it’s going to be cars and computers that cartoon network and pogo will hard-sell in between the antics of anthropomorphed animals. it’s getting to be a scary world to raise a child.

but it gets downright rich when t.o.i. endorses this attitude on its editorial page saying that “indian children of a different era were oppressed in the joint family system, where all the decisions from what they would eat to what they could do in their leisure time were taken on their behalf. now that those shackles of uniformity have been thrown off, it is only right that children should step in enthusiastically to play an active role in their lives and the lives of their parents.” timesview, p.26, monday, june 19, 2006.

and here i thought that i was the wildest conspiracy theorist around. green veggies as instruments of child abuse? i should sue parents for manipulating my right to life with lies like ‘playing with fire can cause serious burns’ or ‘falling off from trees can cause grievous injuries’. now you know why i’m like this only (not that i didn’t get burnt or split my lip in course of experimenting with anti-gravity).

yes. it’s great that children today are taking such an active role in planning the family budget. all indian families can now be as perfect-toothily, healthy-gummily happy as the ones on t.v., and they can gorge on pizzas and guzzle colas, while the friendly adults abdicate all parental authority and the little adults mull on which insurance to buy, because god knows, they are going to need it soon.