Materialistic Society is 'Damaging' Children: Poll Says - Dr. Paul J. Dean
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080226103117.duhctnsx&show_article=1

Children feel under pressure to own the latest designer clothes and computer games and most adults believe the "commercialisation of childhood" is damaging young people's well-being, a poll said Tuesday. A survey by GfK NOP for the Children's Society showed that out of the 1,225 adults questioned, 89 percent felt that children are more materialistic now than in previous generations. Evidence submitted to the inquiry from children themselves suggests that they do feel under pressure to keep up with the latest trends, the society added. The poll is part of a larger inquiry into childhood and includes evidence by professionals and members of the public on issues such as lifestyle, learning, friends and family.

Commentary

Certainly children feel under pressure to own the latest designer clothes and computer games for at least two reasons: the materialistic philosophy they are being taught by their parents and the larger culture and the target market they have become. The culture of the individualized self is manifest at earlier ages with each passing generation. That dynamic in combination with the almost universal American notion that “I deserve it all” is a recipe for disaster. Add to that the concept of “my own money,” give it to children and the dish is done. Children are easy pickings for the advertising industry.

What should be more alarming is the actuality that biblical prohibitions against selfism, materialism, greed, pride, and vanity are all but rejected even by most Christians. That things will make us happy, that we must like what the world likes, that we must have what the world has, and that we must be well thought of by the world, are attitudes associated with those who don’t truly know God. The fact that these attitudes should be found in children, and indeed among evangelicals, merely reveals the spiritual poverty in which the church finds herself today. One may attempt to alter the biblical revelation that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil with some kind of misguided rationale that enables him to adopt a lifestyle in pursuit of “building wealth,” but one may not alter its reality or its consequences. By the way, it is not society that’s damaging children, its sin.