You can read it at www (dot) 4 (spelled out) stonesoup (dot) com if you want.
The gist of my post is WHY DEAR GOD WHY do schools allow such aggressive marketing techniques in schools? Promotional Videos? Brightly Colored Stickers Reminding him he needs to BE A SCOUT? PIMP TALKS? For the Love of God?
And quite honestly, they do it for many other organizations as well--sports leagues, karate classes, local nature camps to name a few. And I realize that there is a line somewhere between informing parents about activities their children can participate in and full on advertising but I don't know. Should our kids' classroom and backpacks be a part of a marketing ploy for any organization involving children? Who decides which organization gets to come in and pimp themselves to my kids? Is it responsible or fair to pump a kid up with misleading propaganda (The Scouts of Boy do Fun Outdoorsy Stuff all of the Time! And it's CHEAP!) and leave the parents to try to explain why that's not exactly correct or true?
It just seems odd that a religiously-affiliated organization is getting a lot of face time during my kid's academic time. I so do not want to be that ranty parent. Partly because we are not out of the religious closet (as atheists in The South--my Dad's a Pastor, for the love...) and partly because I don't care to rock the boat in a school system where I hope to be eventually employed.
I generally hate all forms of aggressive advertising. It seems patronizing (here, let me tell you what you should do or buy or have!), deceptive and manipulative. I can turn off the advertising on TV. I can avoid stores at the mall where people try to usher my kids into their brightly lit stores filled with over-priced doll clothes and bears they can shove fluff into the ass of. But how do I handle it when it comes from school?
I realize this is an opportunity to teach my kids that their desires do not exclusively dictate our family's schedule. But trust me, we do that ALL of the time (as we are inherently selfish, lazy parents who have NO desire to spend all of our free time catering to our kids' whims). But it's very hard when my first grader is being constantly told for a full week (so far) at school how great, service-oriented,and awesomely spectacular (With Fire! And Cookies!) The Scouts of Boy is. Even my kindergarten *daughter* is stoked about going to The Scouts of Boy--which, obviously, she can't. (Although I would like to say that I put aside all of these convictions for Peanut Butter Tagalong GSCookies. Just sayin'. All of my frothy-mouthed rantiness goes down the drain when peanut butter, chocolate and shortbread are involved.)
I feel like it's kind of like a church. Huge amounts of time, energy and money spent on proselytizing and manipulative, bait-and-switch advertising where you are told you'll have fun doing charitable, service-oriented activities, making crafts, eating cookies and drinking lemonade and going to camp when in reality, you spend most of your time in boring meetings, the cookies are cheap and the uniform sucks.
