Gifts kids won't expect

Jill Gunning, mother of two, can neatly summarize many parents' chief complaint about the status of gift giving in America.

"The things that kids want aren't the things you want them to have," says Ms. Gunning, whose children, ages 12 and 15, recently joined her for a Saturday of holiday shopping at a Providence, R.I., mall.

The prelude to this Christmas has been no different. The Gunning children, to their mother's dismay, are lobbying for a new XBox video game system, a product Gunning curtly describes as "not very stimulating."

Yet she admits it is all but a foregone conclusion that her kids will eventually own it, given the tidal wave of hype - including a $500 million advertising budget - promoting the game console.

Like Gunning, many parents are growing more frustrated with a culture of consumerism that seems to be quickly slipping out of their control. At gift-giving time, that frustration can shift into overdrive.

As recently as 15 years ago, experts say, toy selection came from the top down, with parents doing most of the choosing. Since then, the decisionmaking power has shifted drastically.

From the Internet, magazines, and TV, today's youths are barraged with advertising. Many new products have the backing of millions in marketing dollars, which can stir up enough hype to spark fads. This pop-culture consumerism pervades children's lives - and shapes the preferences of many.

Parents who flinch at the products that catch their children's attention often capitulate, either due to a lack of information or simply because their children (who are more monied than ever) might simply buy the item for themselves.

Yet observers say parents and grandparents, spurred by a new current of antimaterialism in the US, are seeking alternatives. Many are searching for a gift or two that, while "cool" enough to pass review by critical peers, may be more enriching than the warblings of a Made-in-China mechanical dog. (For some examples, see story below.)

Experts credit parents' rising frustration to the aggressive marketing tactics of toymakers who bypass parental oversight, taking their pitch directly to kid consumers. Some say the strategy dates back to 1984, when the federal government deregulated children's television, allowing retailers to create TV programs with the intent of promoting a toy. Such shows were previously considered free advertising, and violated commercial-per-hour limits during children's programs.

More than $2 billion is now spent annually on advertising directed at children, about 20 times the amount spent just 10 years ago, according to Shelly Reese, author of "KIDMONEY: Children as Big Business."

"The year-round marketing to kids has skyrocketed through the Internet, radio, and children's magazines," says Betsy Taylor, director of the Center for A New American Dream, a consumer-advocacy group in Takoma Park, Md. "It's the background noise of childhood."

The commercialization of childhood, advocates say, fueled the evolution of kids into one of the nation's key consumer groups. Youths' role in family economics has followed. In 1997, children influenced $188 billion of their parents' purchases, tripling the 1982 total, according to the Channel One Network, a school-based news network.

Terry Tosetti's children are adults, but she knows from shopping for her sister's nine grandchildren that gift-giving has changed since her children were young.

"Parents bought what they thought children needed," says Ms. Tosetti, a resident of Plainville, Conn. "Today, kids say what's on their mind.... If [it's] Harry Potter, parents know they have to get it."

But other experts argue that parents - in part to compensate for diminished time for one-to-one interaction - have been all too willing to satisfy their children's craving for pop toys.

Indeed, just as marketers began taking their message directly to children, they say, parents themselves began to focus more on building their self-esteem by satisfying - rather than shaping - their kids' preferences.

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