A.     Discuss the role of the child in today’s family.

Once children ran around outside playing with each other and with whatever they could find. Then the toy industry arrived and parents began to buy toy for their children, and the children started telling their parents what they wished for birthday or Christmas. But still the kids got what their parents decided that they should have, nothing more, nothing less.

But times have definitely changed. And from being the members of the family who had nothing to say when it came to buying a car, a vacation or something like that, the children have now got a huge influence on their parents buying habits, and they have therefore turned into a very important group of consumers for a lot of companies. As a matter of fact way to many children these days can get their parents to buy them nearly whatever they want. So whether it is some new toy, a phone, a playing console or a trip to Disneyland, the parents will buy it.

But why have the children got so much influence on their parents? Well, a major reason is that the parents don’t have enough time for their kids, because they are living in a world that is a lot more stressful than it was a few decades ago. They have to work more and more, faster and faster and perform their very best just to be able to keep their job. Which is a result of the globalization. But also because of the progress we have seen in a lot of Asian countries, where billions of people are now not just able to take over a lot of the jobs western parents are doing, but also ready to do it while they are being paid less. Another reason why the parents have to work more is that they have to earn money to be able to buy the things that a lot of people consider as important for a modern family. A result of the fact that we have become more materialistic. A third reason is that we have created a society where the career is becoming more and more important. Pushing the family aside and having the job as your primary importance is therefore becoming normal.

So they don’t have time for their children, which they obviously know. And to compensate for the missing time they buy things for their children, and allow them to decide way to many things in order to keep their children happy. Because they can’t deal with unhappy kids at the same time as they have to deal with their job and society.

And advertisers have of course noticed the children’s increasingly influence on their parents and on their parents money, and they have therefore put their energy on creating advertises focused on children. And the fact that children are so easily affected by commercials and so on makes the advertisers capable of almost dictating what the children want. And when children discover that they can get nearly everything they want from their parents, they start demanding more. The parents will be pressed into buying these things which they can hardly afford, which means that they will have to work more to earn more money, and they will then get to spend even less time with their children. So it is kind of a vicious circle. And you could say that the commercial industry and the advertisers are taking advantage of the children which is perhaps not ethical correct. But who can blame them? They need to earn money for their children too.