Val McCullough: Kids may struggle in our consumer

When the large brown paper package arrived, I knew summer was near.

My clothes didn't come from a mall, a catalog or Amazon as when I was a child.

My Aunt Alice — whose daughters — my cousins — had outgrown the clothes — mailed them to me.

The packages arrived twice a year. Early summer and early winter.

Mom placed the unopened package on my bed and waited for me to open it when I got home from school.

As soon as I saw the paper-wrapped treasure on my bed, I leaped onto the bed, bouncing on the mattress.

"You shouldn't jump onto beds like that. What if you landed on something sharp?" Mom warned.

With her scissors, Mom cut the string, and we took out the summer dresses, shorts and tops.

Most of the clothes were only two or three years old. Others may have been eight years old — since my cousin Beverly was eight years older than me.

I couldn't tell which outfits were newer — or which were older since I didn't know what was in or out of fashion. All I knew was that seeing and trying on my new treasures was fun.

It wasn't until our family moved to Palo Alto, Calif., that the concept of fashion slammed me in the face.

It happened the minute I stepped into my new junior high.

Most girls wore pencil-thin skirts, white buck shoes and lollipop-colored sweaters.

I felt like a country bumpkin in a child-like dress and Mary Jane shoes.

I lost my fashion innocence that day. Fortunately, Mom came to my rescue by helping me buy a few new duds the following weekend.

Within two weeks, I had a steady babysitting job to help me buy "what all the other girls were wearing."

Looking back, I treasure my 13 years of freedom before being snared into this advertiser's alluring trap.

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with having a nice wardrobe. It's fun to look nice.

But I wonder if advertising to children comes at a price to their emotional well-being.

Advertising suggests, "If you want to be loved, valuable or attractive, buy our brand."

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the average U.S. child watches between 13,000 and 40,000 TV commercials annually.

Before 1950, advertisements weren't geared toward children and teens.

When that brown box arrived from my Aunt Alice, I’d never even seen a TV set. Nor had I seen a teen magazine.

I realize we can't go back to the 1940s — when I was a child.

My Mom didn't own a washing machine for laundering the clothes that arrived in the brown paper box. I don't envy her job of washing the family laundry by hand, and I appreciate the advances technology has brought us.

But we know that children and teens struggle in our consumer-oriented society — and we must question the ethics of advertising to young children.

After all, aren't all our young people lovable and valuable regardless of what they wear?

Readers, what can each of us do to assure our young people that they are loved — with or without the latest fashion?

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