Reg has started blaming the parents ...

[forkful]

Reg Bailey has started blaming the parents

(The male CEO of the Mother's Union who wrote the recent report into the sexualisation/commercialisation of children).

Bloody hell so depressing to be proved right.
This is what we discussed I think ages ago when the new report was commissioned. Too narrow a remit, too right wing, too Christian, not addressing the wider points re how women are viewed/treated in today's society.

What a idiot.. There was zero point in his report if he is then subsequently going to put a "parents are to blame" line out in the press. He was meant to be empowering parents!

Is that the article you meant to link? It opened to one about equal pay, not parents.

Correct link to article

Imagine my surprise. That's exactly why the government dumped Linda Papadopoulos's stuff and got Reg in instead. So that there was no danger of upsetting big business and retailers. And of course, all the idiot parents who read about how parents are blame, will nod and purse their lips because they won't think it's about them, they'll think it's about other parents of course.

I am not even vaguely suprised by this, it's exactly what I would have expected.

This was also discussed In The News.

The article is couched in terms of parents actions (not mothers - indeed the only anecdote concerns a father/son interaction).

Children do not (normally) have much economic power (beyond pocket money), and rely on pester power. It is up to the parent to decide whether to withstand or indulge. But it is also up to parents (and others) together to form the norms of what is accessible to children.

Does anyone know if/where the full report is available on-line?

Oh, you mean this Reg?

Quel surprise

I found this interesting: "If an 8-year-old pretends to be 13 to sign up, when they are actually 13 the site will allow advertising from gambling, alcohol and cosmetic surgery companies to be targeted at their page because Facebook will think they are 18."

Why exactly are Facebook allowed to advertise over 18 products, to 13-17 year olds? What does Reg have to say on that?

Oh I see I get it now. She's saying that by the time the 8 year old gets to 13, s/he'll be getting those ads... she's assuming that facebook will still be the social network site of choice by that time.

Meditrina report here.

Lots of us here predicted the way this report would go and were gutted that the recommendations of the previous report were ignored.

Blaming parents is just a crap argument. Unconcerned parents will take no notice, concerned parents will be .

One thing I liked from the report was this "sexual wallpaper" term. As parents there are lots of images we can't at the moment avoid.

As a slight aside did anyone notice that in one of the HoC debates (might have been the Nadine Dorries one) a female MP mentioned going into a newsagent/supermarket with kids and seeing lads mags etc. A male MP pipes up "don't take them there" FFS this is why we need a more inclusive HoC.

Yy to a webchat with Linda P ( David Cameron thought v highly of her report dontcha know! Did you see me get Reg to admit that on the webchat! Ha! There was loads in her report about sexual bullying so I will go c&p onto the stickied thread about that.)

A male MP thinks supermarkets should be adult-only zones?

Really? Which one? Do the supermarket owners agree with him?

FFS. That bunch of pricks in the house of commons. They really have no respect at all for women, do they?

Hansard -search for Chris Bryant. He is Labour. Perhaps it was not quite as bad as I suggested it was re newsagents and ND said some seem to have more sex mags than anything else.

To be scrupulously fair to Chris Bryant, he didn't say "don't take children into newsagents", he said that if a newsagent has more sex magazines than any other kind of magazine then don't go into that shop (which I would take from the words themselves, although I didn't hear how they were said, to be a "vote with your feet and cash/boycott worst offenders" argument rather than a "children shouldn't go into local shops" argument). He is still missing most of the point quite spectacularly, though.

Ah right, that does sound a bit less mad.