Children Aren’t the Only Ones Manipulated by Television

On a recent family vacation the kids were enjoying some hotel television. We don’t have cable at home and they aren’t use to commercials. Every ad for toys and sugar filled candy immediately excited the kids. We heard time and time again, “I want that”, “I want to try that”, “Oooooh look at that”.

My husband pointed out that these commercials manipulated kids into thinking they needed these things. He told them not to be so easily manipulated.

On the flight back home our planes had TV in the back of the seat. I turned on HGTV, a favorite channel of mine back in the day when we had cable. A home renovation show was on. The couple on the show said they needed to upgrade their kitchen and they had a 200,000 dollar budget to do this. This included refinishing perfectly good hard wood floors because they didn’t like the current color of the finish. I’d like to reiterate they were almost brand new floors, they just didn’t like the color. There was nothing wrong with them, but the couple and the design team kept using the word “need”.

Nine years ago I probably would have watched this show and happily agreed that yes in fact those floors did “need” to be redone or those counter tops that are in perfect condition, just not the right color, totally need to be replaced too. But unfortunately minimalism has ruined these shows for me.

I have zero problem with anyone spending $200,000 to change the look of the kitchen if that’s intentionally where they want to use that money. The problem for me happens when it is described as a need and not a want and other adults are being convinced of this, just like those candy and toy commercials.

Our current house is old and creaky. My daughter pointed out the other day that every room downstairs has a different type of flooring. We have old wide pine floors with gaps that the kids toys often fall into in the living room, the kitchen floors are some other type of wood flooring that is old and rough and there is awful peel and stick tile in the bathroom. I don’t particularly like any of this flooring but I don’t need new floors. Would I like new floors? Yes. Will we eventually replace some of the flooring? Yes. But it’s not a need.

I guess the point of this is that as adults we are well aware our kids are being manipulated by advertisements (or the shows themselves) but sometimes we are unconscious to the fact that we are too.

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About the Author: Nikki Cox is a mommy of two striving to live life with intention. Find her at Lovelylucidlife.com.