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The Bishop of Ripon and Leeds warns of the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood.
The Home Office review into sexualisation of young people 2010 spoke of the increased sexual imagery in advertising, including a significant increase in the number of sexual images of children. We seem to have on the one hand an increasing horror of paedophilia, and on the other a willingness to allow the sexualisation of childhood to develop and increase. Little attempt has been made to relate the one to the other.
Successive governments have expressed their alarm at this phenomenon, as have writers and organisations concerned with family life and childhood (e.g. Collins etc: Watching Sex on Television Predicts Adolescent Initiation of Sexual Behaviour. American Academy of Paediatrics 2004: Mothers' Union: Bye Buy Childhood 2010). It is important that the clear government commitment (Our Programme for Government, Section 14) to crack down on irresponsible advertising and marketing is followed by specific action to change the law.
Sexualisation of childhood is only one part of a wider problem. There is a danger that our society's obsession with sex ignores the wider problems of the impact of commercialisation on childhood. Advertising aimed at children can affect their physical health (food and drink marketing), mental health (low self-esteem, obsessive concern with appearance), and values. Consumerism, materialism and commercialisation are closely linked and their dangers may easily be increased at a time of austerity.
One major current concern is website content. This is less easily controlled by regulatory frameworks than the written media, and has recently been the subject of European Parliament recommendations.
Government alone cannot control the commercialisation of childhood. It can work with parents, schools and the advertising industry itself to create a culture where children are defended against the worst excesses of commercial greed, and the use of sexualisation to threaten childhood.
John Richard Packer became Bishop of Ripon and Leeds in 2000. He entered the House of Lords in 2006.
Article Comments
I would like to wholeheartedly agree with the comments of the Bishop of Leeds and Ripon regarding the sexualisation of children. But I'd also like to add one very significant, in fact fundamental, dimension. Internet pornography. Many reading this will recall an adolescence that included sniggering with schoolmates over 'adult material'. But this is a world away from the gynaecological detail now served up in vast quantities on the world wide web, readily available to the majority of teens (and younger) who spend more time online than most adults. It is not something we seem to want to take seriously. And, of course, many parents bury their heads in the sand or feel incompetent to manage this online space that is more comfortable to their children than to them. But you only get one chance at childhood, and I fear we are failing vast numbers of children by not protecting them from their own curiosity or from stumbling upon high resolution images of every form of sexual degradation imaginable (or unimaginable!) The world wide web and the world of commerce offer no moral compass to the children of today and adults of tomorrow. Politicians, community leaders and parents need to reclaim some sense of dignity and propriety for our children. I hope they care enough to at least try.
Donald Findlater, director of research and development with child protection charity, the Lucy Faithfull Foundation,
10th Feb 2011 at 1:12 pm
The Lord Bishop is wrong when he suggests that the law must be changed to prevent children from 'being commercialised.' He is right when he concludes that parents, educators and the advertising industry all have a role to play in keeping commercial messages in check.
We, all of us, live in a commercial world. It is our responsibility as citizens, parents and marketers to ensure that children's introduction to that world is gradually and appropriately managed, and comprehensively regulated.
Advertising Association
10th Feb 2011 at 10:17 am
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