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I just gotta have it
Please, please, please read my column. Pleeeeeeease, read it.
Would you please read it? Pretty please with sugar on top. I want you to read this column. You need to read this column. I need you to read this column.
O.K. I'm done nagging you about reading this column, but if I were a 10-year-old, I would go on to nag you approximately two more times, according to a new study about nagging.
According to the "nag factor," children will continue to ask their parents nine times even after the parents have said "no." A study by the Center for a New American Dream found that 10 percent of 12- and 13-year-olds said they ask their parents more than 50 times for products they have seen advertised.
In the survey, one kid said he was willing to ask his dad 150 -- that's correct, 150 -- times if it was something he really wanted. This kid definitely has a future in advertising or perhaps prisoner reform; that is if his parents don't kill him before adulthood.
But his parents are partly to blame, according to the study. At some point in the past, his parents must have given into the child's nagging, probably at the 149th question.
What is behind this increase in nagging? Marketing geared toward these preteens.
The average kid sees 40,000 commercials a year. That's more than 100 ads a day, which translates into 100 things to buy each and every day. These ads convey the image that the child won't have any friends, they will be ugly, someone will come take their dog if they don't have these products.
Ads tell children not only what products they should ask for, but also why they should own these products. Then when the parents question the child's motives, the teenybopper has a list a mile long.
For example, Cindy really, really, really wants -- no, needs the latest Barbie mansion for her doll. Why? Because Barbie and Ken need a larger house to live in together and raise their family and live happily, ever after.
Otherwise, she'll end up in a shack, raising her nine children as a single mom because Ken left her long ago for someone with a bigger house and more toys.
It's hard to resist that reasoning.
Children are learning to nag at an earlier age. While the survey questioned 12- to 17-year olds, kids learn how to manipulate on small things before starting first grade. Kids today can't even tie their own shoe, but they know how to get the entire Hot Wheels set.
I know I'm doomed in my household to years of listening to nagging and not because my husband I give in to the whining and nagging. In fact, the children know if they ask more than once, they will automatically not get what they want with the exception of asking to use the bathroom.
In my family, getting what they want sometimes doesn't end the nagging.
Driving down the road to a family trip, my four-year-old will spy the Golden Arches. (The kid can tell you the name of any fast food chain, even ones we have never been visited.) With dinner time approaching, we agree that Mickey D's will do for dinner.
Then a little voice chimes in from the backseat, "I want to go to McDonald's."
"I just said we were going to McDonald's," I calmly, as always, reply.
"Are we going to McDonald's?" he continues.
"Yes, I said we are going. Now quit asking," my voice starting to rise.
"I really want to go to McDonald's."
"If you say it one more time, we won't go." Suddenly, we're nearly without a place for a dinner.
We make it to the restaurant. Everyone unloads out of the vehicle and makes it inside without miraculously running in front a moving vehicle. We approach the counter to order, debating what to eat, when a little voice behind me says: "I want a new toy."
"If you say that one more time...."