Diwali and a Mature Consumer

It is long believed by marketers that children influence the consumption patterns of parents not only in relation to goods and servies consumed by them, but also with regards to goods and services consumed by the adults in the family. It is around this belief that some proud parents happily declare "you know my ten year old son told me not to buy Laura but settle for Civic" or that VAIO was better than HP". it is little wonder that many of the so called kids channel are full of advertisements that have nothing to do with children. I too had a taste of these baby mature consumers in the last few days two. In the first instance, my daughter asked me one evening while I was trying to put her to bed "dad do children make crackers"? I said yes several lakh of them are employed in making crakers and that there was a whole history of Child labour beginning with the Industrial Revolution were little boys where send down the mines and up the chimneys. The next demand was obviously to buy firecrackers "lots of them" but withiout noise. It made me realise how tiny consumers were very mature... there was guilt of consumption, there was greed for consumption and there was awareness behind what was to be consumed at th instersection of guilt and greed. In the second instance, while watching TV with my daughter, I noted with excitement the ad for a famous children's movie and before I could tell my daughter "we must watch it together", she said "how stupid, do they expect us to watch a movie at 9PM on Diwali evening"!
I am learning fast from my new teacher, what to consume, how to consume, how to prioritise comsumption and what not to consume......

Child Lock

I have one child and I am very protective about her. Statement of Fact, right! yes right! But do I know what to protect her from? I thought I did, especially by controlling her TV viewing time as well as content and channels that she could view.
She has been watching TV since she was one year old starting with telly tubbies, so she is now and experienced TV watcher. yes a six year old can be an experienced TV watcher especially given the amount of programme recycling that goes on in India. But I digress. To come back to the point.
Till last year due to this amazing mechanism called Child Lock my child's TV viewership was limited to kids channels only, and I was under the impression that what my child was watching was the rith stuff that children her age across the globe watched. I have to say I have had to change my views after going through with her the channels and the programmes she watches. here is what she watches, I don not remember the exact programmes but can give you a gist of the contents: The biggest problem though is that most of the programmes are not avaialble in the original english but in weird sort of translation. Thus there is this popular Japanese cartoon in Hindi of course where a monkey and a terrier are fast friends, but the monkey for some reason is called Mummabhai and the terrier Circuit, they speak in the same style as the eponymous characters in the movie series. The second prorgamme comes in the Disney Channel which for long I thought was a provider of wholesome entertianment to children, till last week that is. The programme she watches is set in a school where you can constantly see the girls and the boys bitching abut each other and trying to undercut each other. it is a child's version of a deadly saas bahu serial. They, of course there are two others one called Ninja hattori in Hindi of course, the best dialogue of which is a onomotopaeic sound which goes like this Tintin tintin ..... tintintin...; and the other one is where the main character is a piece of cheese with the usual holes and some teeth.
Is my daughter especially wicked or retarded, not really. But then what makes her watch these programmes, you may ask? The simple answer is nothing else is available. She is watched tom and jerry so many times [they are repeated very often and she knows all the episodes by heart] that she does not feellike watching them. Animal Planet? She will take some years to understand Richard Attenborough's accent, I guess and she really has no interest in the mating habits of moths, National Geographic? sometimes it's risky. That does not leave too many options. Does it?
So what should I do to ensure that my little darling does not really become retarded watching children;s channels? Or that she does not become an adult before her time watching Children's channels? There is no easy solution, but I have thoght of one simple one and am hoping that it works... I have decided to remove the child locks from all channels to give her more options beyond children's channels. This is the first step and I am sincerely hoping that she will "diversify" even if it means watching Fashion TV - yes, i am quite desperate. If this does not work, i am really wish it works, I have decided that plan B is going to be more drastic - I am going to make the child lock stand on its head and lock all the children's channels, I am sure that will make my child an adult faster than I had planned to, but that will also make sure that she will not be retarded.
Long Live Child Lock.