Are your children stuck in a "materialistic trap"? Your thoughts on Unicef's report about British children and family time, please!

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

We wanted to let you know (if you haven't seen it already) that Unicef have just published a report in which they said that British children are caught in a "materialistic trap".

British children, they say, aren't able to spend enough time with their families (because British parents work such long hours) and their parents, feeling the pressure, "buy them off with branded goods".

"Consumer culture in the UK contrasts starkly with Sweden and Spain," say Unicef in their report, "where family time is prioritised, children and families are under less pressure to own material goods and children have greater access to activities out of the home."

What's your reaction to this? Do you agree with Unicef - or not?

And, if you agree, what could we all do about it?

Notjustkashka, I agree wrt their being a lot of emphasis on perfect gift giving in the media. I used to work for a FMCG company who talked about how many 'gifting opportunities' there were throughout the year.

Lemon, \link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2010/mar/14/seven-days-with-chris-addison#/?picture=360346160&index=3\here you go}

It is saying children are unhappy because parents are working too hard and not spending enough time with them because parents need to to buy stuff.

Therefore, if parents didn't buy things they could actually spend time with their unhappy darlings. It doesn't refer to the costs of housing/ transport/ childcare etc which are the usual reasons people have to work - it is people 'powerless' before pressure to consume.

The government wants us all to work and therefore pay taxes and support consumer spending for as much of our lives as possible. It's about money, not wellbeing. Housing costs mean that many people have no genuine choice about both parents working full-time. This does impact on family time, making it hard for families to eat together on weekdays, and weekends being taken up with food shopping, cleaning and DIY.

It's not in the government's financial interest for us to curb our spending, have time to cook from scratch or to be able to work part time.

I read somewhere that peer pressure starts earlier in the UK than in most other countries. A child prinicipal source of influence is his or her family until an average of 8 yo or later in many other European countries, but here that gets displaced earlier - 6yo, I think.

Sorry, not helpful if I don't have the exact facts but I want to add it to the discussion as it seems possible that if you decrease the time a child spends with parents then you may decrease their influence over the child's world views and behaviour, and increase the opportunity for peers influence to fill the gap. This can have an impact on everything from teen pregnancy rates to consumerism and depression.

Mexican fishman innit?

\link{http://www.inspirationpeak.com/shortstories/mexicanfisherman.html\here}

But I think a lot of people / families are working to pay the basics and bills, not to buy stuff. I could be wrong though, I haven't asked 250 people.

I agree that high housing costs have meant many more people working ft oth.

Sigh. My DSs don't have shiny things nor a massive amount of family time.
We're failing them on both counts.

My DH works in the library. Maybe when it gets taken over by the Big Society he'll have more time with the family.

Just re-read the Guardian article. I don't really understand what 'the cuts' have to do with it (except in enforcing a bit more family time and a little less consumerism in some households)? I think 'the cuts' is a bit tenuous, there tbh. What we're really talking about here is our culture and aspirations as a whole, and that situation hasn't arisen overnight.

I wouldn't mind seeing a lot of advertising banned, but generally I think this is a side issue.

There is evidence from other studies to say that on average parents spend more time with their kids (esp dads) than they did 30/40 years ago, and play with them more. We do need to work less and play more though. We're always focused on economic growth, a macho work ethic and not social growth. The economy should not grow at the expense of peoples' wellbeing.

What affects kids wellbeing most adversely though is living in an incredibly unequal society where the rich are getting richer (massively so each year) and the poor are getting poorer. Feeling there is no way to get on in life as there are so many obstacles, or just not knowing how to. Plus the media is constantly negative about kids and parents.

So, it took the riots to indicate that taking away leisure facilities from young people was a bad thing

Marking a spot for Ron

The summary article (available on the unicef website) has lovely pics of quite young children, but the study asked children aged 8-13. Unnecessarily emotive I think.

About the playing with them more: is it possible that what children need is just to 'be around' their parents, rather than 'playing' with them?

I would have thought it would be more common for both parents to be working long hours in order to pay for a roof over their heads. I live in one of the few areas on the country where house prices are still affordable for people on one average income without having to live in a rough area or extremely cramped conditions.

I think it's crap for the reasons other people have given I also felt the earlier survey finding that Britain was the worst place in Western Europe to be a child - or some such nonsense.

When I was growing up my mother stayed at home until I started school and then worked part time so was always around for me.

However, she did sometimes work Saturdays and evenings which I resented.

If Unicef had asked 7 year old me about my levels of happiness I'd have whinged about that and forgotten all the nice things because like all children I was astoundingly self-centred.

It's anecdotal, but I was in a playgroup earlier in the year in the former east Germany where the mothers were deploring their children's need for branded things (e.g. an 18mo recognising a "hello kitty" toy and wanting it). This is of course in particularly stark contrast to the way they grew up in 1970s E. Germany.

if they spoke to 250 people in 3 countries I think I'm allowed to mention talking to about 15 and extrapolating from there. It's not just in the UK that consumerism is getting a bit out of hand.

I am always about such reports. There's a lot of pressure brought to bear on researchers to produce outcomes with the requisite amount of "impact".

OK, just looked at the methodology in the full article.

They spent a total of 6hrs with a total of 24 families to get a picture of family life.

Then they talked to 250 children from 7 schools in each country (21 schools in total). The children were picked by the teachers.
While the article does state that the methodology gives rise to illustrative rather than statistically significant findings, I really don't think the project was wide enough.

I second the statement that today parents spend more time with their children than before. In general men doing labouring jobs worked long hours and had little time for their children when they came home, preferring to spend it in the pub with fellow workers. Mums were busy with wash day, cooking, shopping, cleaning and so on.

As for material things. We lived in France for 2 years and over there they are all obsessed with designer clothes. Kids in school are teased if they aren't wearing the latest labels and woe betide you if you turn up wearing a fake!

I too would like to see a lot of advertising aimed at children reduced, but this idea that parents are buying branded things for their children as some kind of guilt gift is ridiculous! Parents are much more hands on with their kids these days. The average man works shorter hours and is given more time off and women may now go to work too, but they didn't sit on the floor and play with the kids all day back in the 60's.

50 years ago you were more likely to be ignored and left to your own devices than you are today as parents are more aware of the need to spend quality time with their children.

The report does make people think about their attitudes towards consumerism, but the rest of it is bull I'm afraid and I normally agree with Unicef. Perhaps they ought to get some statistics from the 50's and 60's and do a proper comparison.

I notice the UN report speaks of banning advertising to children, rather than asking the advertising industry to set up gimmicky websites encouraging parents in the illusion of feeling powerful by complaining about advertising, a la Reg Bailey.

I don't think there is much of a chance that govt will ban advertising to children, even though their leaked restricted document on trying to appeal to women voters talks of "working towards a proper ban." The govt greatly prefers the "working towards" rather than the "proper ban." They showed in the Bailey Review that what they want is to fine tune the hard sell -- to put advertisers in the driving seat with forms of self-regulation that aren't much more than a sop to people who think that childhood is overly commercialised.

i semi agree, sorry.
i am sahm (no money but no axe to grind either) a very good friend (who i love dearly btw) is on mat leave with her 2nd child. She and her dh both have highly paid, long hours jobs. dd1 is in nursery 4 days a week (slightly shorter hours than her usial day but still 4 full days a week (8-4.30ish) on the day and the weekend that she's off nursery my friend wants to do 'the zoo', arts cafe, safari parks, museums....every day is an 'experience' i have always (privately) thought 'why not keep her off an extra day and just have her around the house and the park or the swimming baths.

she took her to that bear factory shop the other day, just 'because' .
she is a devoted parent and would be horrified if people thought she was just chucking money and 'stuff' at the kid though.

I just get angry with the report - it just seems like a whole lot of supposition and badly drawn conclusions to anecdotal evidence ...

I also don't see the link comparing children in Spain, Sweden and the UK

Is it the actual wording on the document or just some journalistic licence ??

Time not money definitely here in our parenting strategy. Seems to have worked so far....