Like you, I hate writing a random letter any corporation is going to ignore. It makes me feel almost as powerless as doing nothing. But, I LOVE knowing my letter joined thousands of other letters and made a serious impact. Read all this cool stuff the CCFC has already accomplished.

From a CCFC newsletter:

Are you distressed when Batman, McDonalds, and Lego partner to sell kids on fast food and video games? When Nickelodeon features the Bratz in a made-for-TV movie? When Elmo and Barbie morph into a "Barbie loves Elmo" toy?

Are you appalled when marketers spend billions of dollars advertising toxic brands and products directly to children - and then lay all of the blame on parents for the rise of marketing-related problems like childhood obesity, youth violence, and precocious, irresponsible sexuality?

Why not do something about it? Support the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, the only national organization devoted solely to countering the harmful effects of commercialization on children. With your help, we're making a difference. We rely on you because we will not compromise our commitment to children and families by accepting corporate funding.

We act on your marketing concerns. When a Boston father contacted us because Webkinz World, the leading social network site for young children, was accepting outside ads, we alerted the media and launched a letter-writing campaign. As a result, Webkinz now gives parents the option for kids to use an ad-free version of their site.

When a mom in Seminole County, Florida, alerted us to McDonald's report card advertising at her daughter's school, we made the ads a national embarrassment for the fast food giant. Our campaign for commercial-free report cards was featured on Good Morning America, The Colbert Report, and hundreds of newspapers around the country. As a result, McDonald's agreed to end the program.

We're reclaiming schools from corporate marketers. Schools around the country are are promoting reading and not consumerism with CCFC's Guide to Commercial-Free Book Fairs. With our help, legislators and educators have made South Carolina the first state to ban all marketing on school buses. Working with local activists and parents, we've successfully stopped BusRadio - a company that plans on "taking student targeted marketing to the next level" - in school districts from Connecticut to California.

We're countering the sexualization of children. After more than 5,000 emails from CCFC members, Scholastic, Inc. decided not to bring the highly sexualized Bratz brand back to school this year. When we caught BusRadio advertising 90210 - a television show chock full of teen sex and drinking - on its website for children as young as six, they began pulling the ads within hours. Our campaign to stop Children's Hospital in Columbus from selling naming rights to the infamous Abercrombie & Fitch for $10 million launched a national conversation about the ethics of public health institutions partnering with corporations that undermine children's wellbeing.

Help us stop the commercialization of childhood, advocate for policies that protect children from unscrupulous marketers, and take on the worst corporate offenders. Your tax-deductible contribution will allow us to continue to build a coalition of organizations and individuals who value children more than the bottom line.

Thanks to an anonymous donor, every contribution of $125 or more will be doubled from now until January 1st. Any amount you are able to give would be greatly appreciated. Please visit to support CCFC today.

$500,000,000,000: The amount of money in purchases that children under twelve influence every year.

$17,000,000,000: The amount of money spent to market to children, a staggering increase from $100 million in 1983.

$3,400,000,000: Revenue generated by the Disney Princess brand in 2006. There are 40,000 Disney Princess items on the market today.

1,200,000,000: Toys sold with kids' meals at fast food restaurants in 2006.

20,000,000: Baby Einstein videos sold by Disney through 2006. The American Academy of Pediatrics reccomends no screen time for children under two.

200,000: The acts of violence, including 40,000 murders, that the average child will see on television by the time they are eighteen.

25,000: Ads on television the average 2-11-year-old sees on television every year, a figure that does not include product placement.

4,151: The number of product placements on the first thirty-eight episodes of American Idol.

When my mother came to visit this summer I asked her, "Mom, was I rebellious as a Kindergartner, a 6 or 7-year-old? Did I argue back about every single thing?"

"Not until you were 14," she said.

See, that's when I was expecting to have to deal with adolescent rebellion - when my kids were, you know. . .adolescents. I feel like Ainsley went from carefree toddler to experiencing adolescent pangs of angst in one short year and I hadn't properly devised a strategy to deal with it. I thought I had 10 more years of childhood.

I've been reading similar stories from parents in their blogs.

Until reading So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids I didn't know how to articulate it.

Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne, authors of the book, have labeled the phenomenon: Pediatric Adolescent Rebellion.

It's symptoms are hysterical emotional outbursts, smarting off in sarcastic ways to parents (similar to the way Hannah Montana or Zack and Cody speak to their friends and family, anyone?), disregard for authority and an increased demanding by children to get their parents to buy stuff that promises to "make them happy."

It's primary source, according to the So Sexy authors, is a scientific approach by marketers to undermine parents - so they can sell more product and make their shareholders "happy."

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood presents the "Have you Lost Your Marbles Awards," to companies that marketed most harmfully to children.

One year it went to the ad company who sent out a press release titled, "The Fine Art of Whining: Why Nagging is a Kid's Best Friend." The release then told marketers how best to exploit children's whining, or the "nag factor." citing studies that say 21 to 40 percent of sales from designer jeans to burgers and dolls results from nagging.

To pit child against parent to sell more stuff, in other words.

Where before corporations had to sell their products by convincing PARENTS the products would benefit their kids, now they are persuading KIDS to manipulate their parents into bowing to emotional terrorism.

If parents say "no" because a product isn't in the child's best interests the marketing gives kids the message they are unloved and unhappy. If the parent says "yes" the parent condones sexually inappropriate products that are harmful to the child's sexuality and identity.

Thus creating constant conflict between parent and child. Creating a phenomenon the authors are labeling "pediatric adolescent rebellion."

No longer is "Is this good for kids?" the concern of products marketed to children. Now the only question is "Can we make children want this product? Can we get kids to nag their parents into buying it?"

And the squabble between parent and child ensues in every conceivable location and situation they find themselves in - at the snack bar, during commercials, at restaurants, during televisions programs, passing billboards, books at the school book fair, video games, at the check-out counter, on the playground.

This type of advertising is even venturing into our schools in text books, book fairs, and reading rewards and sponsorships.

Much of this marketing has an underlying sexual message as we discussed previously in So Sexy So Soon: Sex Education Quiz and So Sexy So Soon: Sexualized Childhood.

One would have to move into an Amish Community to avoid direct marketing designed to get children to harass parents for things that aren't good for them.

All designed to exploit the nag factor and whittle away at the parent-child relationship.

So. Children. Will. Shop.

Marketers are organized. Parents are on their own.

Read more in this series at So Sexy So Soon: Sex Education Quiz and So Sexy So Soon: Sexualized Childhood.

Check out this page at Mediawise.org for startling statistics about where direct advertising to children is popping up.

Who doesn't need a corporate sponsor for their project?

Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, OH does, of course.

According to Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, they plan to rename their ER The Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency Department and Trauma Center in exchange for a $10 million donation.

The CCFC has made this statement in a letter to the hospital asking them to keep the money and refuse to advertise.

Research links sexualization and objectification with some of the most pressing and common health problems for girls including depression and poor sexual health. It is also distressing that a children's hospital would promote a company that features impossibly thin and idealized body types in its advertising when 10 million girls and young women in the United States are struggling with an eating disorder.

We understand that it is common for public health institutions to seek gifts from the business community. We are not asking that the hospital return the money. But gifts that include a quid pro quo like naming rights cross the line from philanthropy to advertising. Given that this company has built its brand by sexualizing and objectifying children, no public health institution should be advertising Abercrombie & Fitch.

I had to agree I looked at some of Abercrombie & Fitches' advertising, Thongs (pictured) for 10-year-olds that say "eye candy." Shirts with slogans like "Who needs brains when you have these?" (pink shirt pictured) and "Do I make you look fat?" Ads touting group sex to sell clothing to teens and preteens. When it comes to sexualizing children, Abercrombie & Fitch is among the worst corporate offenders.

Send a letter telling the hospital you think it's a bad idea to let our kids associate Abercrombie and Fitch with their health and well-being. You can do it quick as night at this link.