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Parents Bill of Rights

From: www.commercialalert.com

We the Parents
Parents' Bill of Rights

WHEREAS, the nurturing of character and strong values in children is one
of the most important functions of any society;

WHEREAS, the primary responsibility for the upbringing of children
resides in their parents;

WHEREAS, an aggressive commercial culture has invaded the relationship
between parents and children, and has impeded the ability of parents to
guide the upbringing of their own children;

WHEREAS, corporate marketers have sought increasingly to bypass
parents, and speak directly to children in order to tempt them with the
most sophisticated tools that advertising executives, market researchers
and psychologists can devise;

WHEREAS, these marketers tend to glorify materialism, addiction, hedonism,
violence and anti-social behavior, all of which are abhorrent to most parents;

WHEREAS, parents find themselves locked in constant battle with this
pervasive influence, and are hard pressed to keep the commercial culture
and its degraded values out of their children’s lives;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the U.S. Congress and the fifty
state legislatures should right the balance between parents and corporations
and restore to parents some measure of control over the commercial influences
on their children, by enacting this Parents’ Bill of Rights, including,

Leave Children Alone Act. This act bans television advertising aimed
at children under 12 years of age. (federal)

Child Privacy Act. This act restores to parents the ability to safeguard
the privacy of their own children. It gives parents the right to control
any commercial use of personal information concerning their
children, and the right to know precisely how such information is
used. (federal, state)

Advertising to Children Accountability Act. This act helps parents affix
individual responsibility for attempts to subject their children to
commercial influence. It requires corporations to disclose who created
each of their advertisements, and who did the market research for
each ad directed at children under 12 years of age. (federal)

Commercial-Free Schools Act. Corporations have turned the public
schools into advertising free-fire zones. This act prohibits corporations
from using the schools and compulsory school laws to bypass parents
and pitch their products to impressionable schoolchildren. (federal, state)

Fairness Doctrine for Parents. This act provides parents with the
opportunity to talk back to the media and the advertisers. It makes
the Fairness Doctrine apply to all advertising to children under 12
years of age, providing parents and community with response time on
broadcast TV and radio for advertising to children. (federal)

Please make copies of the Parents’ Bill of Rights, and give or mail them
to your members of Congress, state legislators and candidates. Ask them
to turn the provisions into law. Distribute this at day care centers, schools,
churches, synagogues, coffee shops, grocery stores and other places where
parents gather.

Call 503.235.8012 to volunteer or to find out how you can help enact the
Parents' Bill of Rights into law.

Commercial Alert • www.commercialalert.org • 3719 SE Hawthorne Blvd. #281,
Portland, OR 97214 • 503.235.8012

Commercial Alert's
WHEREAS, the aim of this corporate marketing is to turn children into
agents of corporations in the home, so that they will nag their parents for
the things they see advertised, thus sowing strife, stress and misery in the
family;

WHEREAS, the products advertised generally are ones parents themselves
would not choose for their children: violent and sexually suggestive
entertainment, video games, alcohol, tobacco, gambling and junk food;

WHEREAS, this aggressive commercial influence has contributed to an
epidemic of marketing-related diseases in children, such as obesity, type 2
diabetes, alcoholism, anorexia and bulimia, while millions will eventually
die from the marketing of tobacco;

WHEREAS, corporations have latched onto the schools and compulsory
school laws as a way to bypass parents and market their products and
values to a captive audience of impressionable and trusting children;

WHEREAS, these corporations ultimately are creatures of state law, and
it is intolerable that they should use the rights and powers so granted for
the purpose of undermining the authority of parents in these ways;

Product Placement Disclosure Act. This law gives parents more
information with which to monitor the influences that prey upon
their children through the media. Specifically, it requires corporations
to disclose, on packaging and at the outset, any and all product
placements on television and videos, and in movies, video games and
books. This prevents advertisers from sneaking ads into media that
parents assume to be ad-free. (federal)

Child Harm Disclosure Act. Parents have a right to know of any
significant health effects of products they might purchase for their
children. This act creates a legal duty for corporations to publicly
disclose all information suggesting that their product(s) could
substantially harm the health of children. (federal)

Children’s Food Labeling Act. Parents have a right to information
about the food that corporations push upon their children. This act
requires fast food restaurant chains to label contents of food, and
provide basic nutritional information about it. (federal, state)

Children’s Advertising Subsidy Revocation Act. It is intolerable that the
federal government actually rewards corporations with a big tax write-off
for the money they spend on psychologists, market researchers, ad agencies,
media and the like in their campaigns to instill their values in our children.
This act eliminates all federal subsidies, deductions and preferences for
advertising aimed at children under 12 years of age. (federal)