The Child and the Brand

The XX blog on Slate has a big article on recent research out of the University of Wisconsin and the University of Michigan which shows:

"Preschoolers recognize brand names and symbols, and they are increasingly willing and able to make judgments about products and people based on associations with those brands..."

The article, by K.J. Dell'Antonia, explicitly avoids the "Oh No, Our Kids!" hand-wringing and instead describes how children use brands to help them categorize the world. Through categories children make sense the world and apply language to it. In using brands to help sort out the world, children are acting like grown-ups. As Dell'Antonia writes: "Adults use branding as a shorthand to narrow choices and locate particular items or qualities they're seeking. In order to keep from being overwhelmed by choice and information on a daily basis, kids need to learn to do the same."

Given that brands are a part of our world, the article suggests that what we need to do is teach our children about them. Developmental psychologist Alison Gopnick is quoted saying, "...Kids need to understand brands, and they will. What we owe them isn't protection. Rather, it's brands that promote decent, healthy products, and an education that promotes a healthy understanding of why and how those brands are working so hard to sell us on their stuff."

This strikes me as true but it's not quite everything we need to talk about when it comes to brands, because when we attach qualities to a brand they often include an assumption of betterness, in a moral sense. Brands are a tried and true a way for us to locate ourselves in the world.

This is not news. I think it's almost an old saw to point out that the choice to buy a certain brand (say Robert's Pirate Booty) becomes not only about it being good for you health-wise but better morally and politically than another more identifiably corporate brand (maybe Cheetohs). I mean, can you imagine Sarah Palin putting a resuable snack container of Veggie Booty in Piper's lunch box?

Of course, adding a moral or political valence to a brand is simply another way of categorizing it, of decoding our world. It's inevitable that our children will make assumptions about brands, just like we do. So if we're going to talk about those assumptions, we're going to need to talk about all of them, and not just the ones about good health and the corporate shill.

You Call that Cake?

This post speaks the truth: If I were to look for a sugarless cake for my kids' birthday (which, for the record, I would never do), I would not look to a wheel of truffle infused aged goat cheese topped with chicken and mashed potatoes made pink with beet juice. The kids would....I can't even begin to say what the kids would do. In fact, if anyone ever served me a "cake" like that, I'm not sure I could be held responsible for my action.

The Bad Night: A Meta-Analysis

Every so often, my son has a bad night. By "bad" I mean he wakes up at some ungodly hour between one and three in the morning and doesn't go back to sleep until five thirty or so. Last night, both my kids woke up at two, my daughter fell back asleep fairly quickly (with me by the bed), but Elliot, he was up until five thirty or six. The worst thing about these nights, besides my heart breaking for my son who really can't get back to sleep, is, of course, what happens in my brain.

Let's face it, if an adult is up and not working in the hours between one and five she should be making use of the city that never sleeps or doing something consenting with another adult, otherwise, her mind will go bananas. For me, if there's a stick in my craw at two AM, by four it's a tree branch, a sore at one thirty is an open wound by three. I know this isn't unusual, but that doesn't make it any more bearable.

Still, if you think about it, and in the wee hours of the morning I had plenty of time to think about it, the parade of horribles that sleepless nights evoke is boring. Last night I didn't exactly embrace the boringness of the parade, but I did repeat to myself, over and over, "My thoughts are going to be terrible. I'm going to think my life is in the toilet. That I'm such a pathetic loser. I may actually be a pathetic loser but I lose much more at three AM." Over and over again I reminded myself that the thoughts I was about to have were going to be bad and by anticipating them, I managed to cut them off. It was a good technique. Maybe not as good as my matzah brei technique, but still something I'll keep in mind for the next time I'm up involuntarily at four in the morning.

Which is Greener: Paper or Metal?

The New York Times thoughtfully provided this run down of the environmental costs of the book and e-reader. It reminds me that for me breaking the online book buying habit is important and buying an e-reader, at this stage of the game, is not.

Free Speech

This is worth watching: Philip Pullman on what we can say and read and write. (Via The Elegant Variation.)

The Pineberry

I can't begin to express how tense this makes me. (Via Shut Up Foodies. Thanks to Marjorie for the link.)

That's Pretty Good

I'm sorry to blog about food again, but it being Passover, it's on my mind. I want to be clear. I'm not keeping Passover -- unlike my husband, I'm eating the things, like bread, that Jews aren't supposed to eat during these eight days.

I could go on and on about my reasons for not doing this, but I don't think it would be that interesting. But I'm thinking about food, and not just about what I'm going to eat next, which, I think, is at least a little bit of the point of not eating certain foods. Still, even with my non-observance, we have matzah in the house. And because there's matzah in the house, there's been matzah brei. If you're unfamiliar with matzah brei, it's kind of like French Toast with matzah only unlike French Toast, it can be salty or sweet.

Now, I've always been a spectacularly bad matzah brei maker, but this year, my run of bad brei seems to have ended. This year, I wet the matzah with water before putting it in its egg bath and once it was smothered in beaten eggs and milk, I ignored it. When I cooked it, I let it set, really set, and I flipped it whole. And, can I tell you, the brei was beautiful. Not just beautiful, it was delicious. When my husband tasted it, his voice dropped an octave and he said, "Now that's pretty good," which, on the David Stone food compliment scale translates into a score of ten out of ten. The moral of the story, for the best matzah brei, ignore it as much as possible, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and dip in labne. Add a strawberry and I promise you'll be happy.