I blame the parents

Eric Schlosser has a point and among many things I believe he is completely correct, however he fails to discuss the other side of the story. He presents his information in such a factual, droning way that it makes you feel, up to the very end, that the facts being presented are pure and in no way refutable. I disagree with him in three ways in his one direction approach by asking the question: What about the parents? To start off, "children's" advertising is in no way completely targeted at just the children. There are advertisements for videos such as "Baby Einstein", toys from "Fischer Price" that claim to help in an infants development, pads from "Leap Frog" that claim to help teach children to read, and an endless list of other things that claim to help raise your children. Not only are these things seen on television and coveted by kids all across America, but the commercials also make parents believe that by buying these items raising their children would be easier. A little girl wines for a doll that talks and the parent thinks "O yes. I saw that on television. The commercial said it will help bring her up to be nurturing" and throws it in the cart, only encouraging the "nagging" technique advertisers rely on. In a distant land called Sam's Club a parent is buying carrots with Sponge Bob on the package thus yet again enforcing the cycle of nagging for everything Sponge Bob, instead of making the kid just eat some regular carrots. This type of behaviour and manipulation, on both sides, is exactly what brings me into my next point. The whole children's advertising world has to have some sort of basis in how children are being raised! A commercial comes on for some new, amazing, and wonderful set of Legos and it does not say " Ask your mom nicely." Instead it screams to the impressionable young mind that if they don't have this they are doomed for the rest of eternity and I believe that modern parents, as an average, have brought up their children to demand and depend on these such things. It is no longer, "If you do that one more time we are going home.", it is "Ive told you twenty times to knock it off or your not getting that toy!" Twenty minutes later when the child has embarrassed you beyond belief, kicked your boss you ran into at Walmart, and knocked down everything in the aisle, you finally give in and put the toy in the cart along with two others, and the cycle continues. What about not raising your children to hold their breath to get what they want or even better not exposing them to the advertising in the first place. Many others mentioned in their post that the thought of advertisers promoting candy cigarettes and the fact that so many young children know "Joe the Camel" was despicable and disgusting. My question is yet again: "What about the parents?" If children know who Joe the Camel is we immediately think "Omg, those advertising companies will do anything to get someone to buy their product. That's disgusting." meanwhile there are millions of parents all over the world with a cigarette in their mouths at this very moment. I don't rest the "blame" squarely on the shoulder of the companies who are only doing their jobs. I instead rest a lot of it on the shoulders of the parents who are exposing their kids to the advertising and raising them to believe it and then whining about the results.