An article recently published in "The Times," titled "Unhappy Daughters: How We are Raising a Troubled Generation," sparked my interest, as writer Helen Rumbelow comments on a new generation of young children with a "Princess Syndrome"." She not only addresses the recent trend in girls growing to be madly materialistic, but she also notes our ˜little angels' are only fading into what society's high expectation of what a young woman should be. Rumbelow in her article asks the audacious question "Are princess dresses the slippery slope to becoming Paris Hilton? " as well as asking "Do computers stunt a girl's emotional development? " and "Aren't children in 2013 Britain lucky? " to prompt her readers, of which surely many are parents, to really consider whether the luxuries bought for our generation's little darlings may actually have the positive impact we intended them to have on our children's lives: emotionally and mentally. Due to what Rumbelow rightly calls "the rise of the electronic bedsit"," children are not only spending less time interacting with the rest of the world, but they are too subjected to the "aggressive marketing strategies used by major toy and fashion retail companies, by which hopefully the children will be surely be convinced they'd want what has been advertised on TV.
With child-targeted advertisements using state-of-the-art graphics and other various methods of indoctrination, Rumbelow justly asks: "how could you not expect our generation's children (under the influence of an enthralling commercial) to feel the urge to buy into the dream"?" But, if the child exposed to these persistent commercials does decide they want what has been so tactfully marketed, what is stopping the child from running to their parents to beg for the desired merchandise? Princess syndrome may begin to threaten parental authority", Rumbelow says, and rightfully so: in the past couple years parents have felt obliged to indulge on, and too have had difficulty refusing their child's wishes, however, what the parents fail to realize is that in doing so they are spoiling their children, and only prompting a shallow lifestyle of materialism and consumerism.
