Disturbing the peace.

In a democratic society, our liberties are continually mediated by the liberties of others. Our ordinances reflect acknowledgment of this greater good, the common good. In an increasing number of states, for example, public lighting that reflects toward the ground--down-lighting--is regulated so that the darkness of the night sky is protected. Human retinas, it turns out, regulate our sleep patterns by the rhythmic changes of light and dark. Communities also have noise ordinances. Most of us would not hesitate to call the police if our neighbor's loud party went too late. Additionally, we expect others to have certain boundaries, to speak to us from a certain distance and to have a certain demeanor. If a stranger solicited us who was too friendly or too overbearing, we would be offended. We might not feel safe. In certain circumstances, we might even consider the stranger's actions criminal.

How is the behavior of this stranger any different or any less offensive than the behavior of businesses that increasingly invade our public space with their solicitations?

It is one thing when these commercial solicitations invade the public space common to adults. We supposedly can discriminate and filter out unwanted messages. When children are continually exposed to these ubiquitous commercial messages, however, it is another thing altogether. Children do not have the discrimination of adults, nor should they. In fact, it is the very openness and receptivity of children that makes commercialism in public places and advertising to children so insidious. It is exploitative to take advantage of their innocence.

In recent times, democratic societies have protected this innocence. Childhood has been seen as a special time when children are under the protection of all. Most would agree that children should not be exposed to adult experiences such as violence, profanity, or sexual explicitness. I would argue that profanity includes the adult emotions of cynicism, hopelessness, and despair and that children should also be protected from these.

Increasingly, instead of protecting children from adult emotions, we use them to seduce our young people. Instead of collectively viewing childhood as a time to be protected, the business community increasingly uses it to develop brand identification. Budding citizens are reduced to "little consumers" hurried through childhood so that they can get to the real thing. Childhood is the real thing.

Childhood is the time of the dream--the time when children are supposed to be in their own worlds, the worlds of their imaginations. Children need a great deal of unstructured, self-directed time to just be. It is their rich experience of imaginative play during childhood that lays the foundation for later abstract and creative thinking. Because children's creative minds are so active during these early years, they will incorporate into their play the images that surround them. Normally these are the images of home, family, and nature. When these images are supplanted with commercial ones from the imaginations of others, play becomes imitative rather than creative, and later capacities may be compromised.

I worry about this compromising, about subtle influences on my children that I can't always control. I worry that the commercial imagery in society competes with the influences of home and family for my children's affection. A child is by nature highly receptive to the environment. When that environment treats children as objects, they may learn to treat themselves and others as objects, too. By allowing commercial messages to dominate our social landscape, we are collectively telling children something very different from what we tell them as parents. As parents, we tell our children that we value them for who they are. As a society, we tell children that we value them for what they have. Whose voice do our children listen to?