78-16-A2
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Toys
TranscriptGovernment has taken aim at another American institution. A child's letter to Santa may soon be a thing of the past. I'll be right back. For a great many years, certainly all that I've lived, parents have waited for their children's letters to Santa Claus to get some idea of what to put beneath the Christmas tree. As growing up changed that, a more direct form of communication took place. After all raising a family presents enough problems without having to guess about what will bring joy to your children on Christmas morning. Now where do children get the ideas they incorporate in those letters to Santa or, in later years that they carefully hint to us parents in elaborately casual conversation. In my childhood it was very often a Sears-Roebuck catalog that fired up desire for an electric train or an Erector set. Then as now it can be the walk through the toy department to see Santa in person, but whatever, a child's imagination isn't up to inventing the toys he or she wants to find under the tree on Christmas morning. In short, they see something some childhood friend has, they see window displays, catalogs and now in living color, TV commercials and from any or all of these choose those toys they'd like to have. There is, of course, the element of parental judgment which often modifies the expressed desire. Sometimes for economical reasons, sometimes because of unsuitability. I remember wanting a mechanical boat I'd seen in a catalog at a time when there wasn't a body of water of any size within miles of where we lived. A couple of years later, we moved to a river town and there on the first Christmas was my boat. This system of communication between parent and child has worked very well for a long time. Now government wants to get in the act. The Federal Trade Commission is considering a ban on TV advertising of toys to children. I'm not sure whether they intend applying the ban to other forms of advertising but with regard to TV they say children must be protected since they're too young to see the distinction between program and commercial. I think they underestimate our children. Isn't this really an interference in the parent-child relationship? The F.T.C.'s concern should extend no further than ensuring that the advertising is not deceptive or misleading and that the toy meets legal requirements as to safety etcetera. From then on it's the parents responsibility to decide whether a toy is or is not suitable for their child. Right now the industry itself regulates all toy advertising, every commercial is submitted for approval by the National Association of Broadcasters, the networks and the Council of Better Business Bureaus. What children watch on TV, and for that matter how much they watch, is a parent's responsibility. The fact that some parents don't exercise that responsibility as they should is hardly the province of the Federal Trade Commission. As for me, I'm still trying to find out what Nancy wants for Christmas. Our children have long since given us the word. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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