Starbox

[smittenbyu]

Franchises, you love them and you hate them. Someone in the school gym was asking other moms/nannies what franchises their kids are following. She obviously meant cartoons-disney stuff.

We haven't really directly introduced D to any movie-related-franchises. We are cheap like that and can't afford to really go buy her one movie-themed-paraphanolia after the other. Even if it's cheap at Target. Which also means D doesn't have access to tablets. She believes tablets are medicine - the pills you swallow. We ourselves don't own any. We did update ourselves with one recent technological advancement and that is a smartphone, which only I have and is not attached to any data plans. So, it's mostly a camera & phone (in India). We did follow the no-screen time till 2 years old strictly - mostly because it fit our budget.

During our travels since D was 6 months old, before we went on a road trip, well, mostly flying, N would grab straws from a popular-coffee chain - they have green straws (it just so happened it was a franchise). And she absolutely loved them! She was completely immeresed when N connected more than one together! Summers in DC, I would often panic when D was under 2 especially, that she would suffer from dehydration!! The only way I could get her to drink water was to stop at this popular coffee chain and get her water in their see through cups with a green straw.

It became kind of a habit. This past year, we can't walk past this coffee-chain without collecting some straws and have to quench a sudden thirst that she has and her water bottle (even when full) has some apparent problem that she can't decipher. It keeps us going through short & long road trips. Each and every bag of mine has at least 3-4 straws, that SHE collects.

She has also learnt its name. She had been calling it the baker-shop (because it has croissants) that has green straws. So, now that she knows the name, we got our daughter hooked to a franchise, Starbox. 

Comments

[echomyst.livejournal.com]

T is hooked on... Costco. She loves the food samples they give out (so do I, haha). Other than that, I guess she's hooked on book series. Right now they're Wizard of Oz, Magic School Bus, Dinosaur Cove, and Ivy & Bean. You're right about the love/hate relationship!

[smittenbyu]

ha ha... D loves Trader Joe's!! She wants "coffee" which means drinking half-and-half. My bag is filled with their cups and the stirring sticks too!! sigh...

Never thought of book franchises! :) There it's ok in my book! :) OK..maybe I am getting tired of Dora. But the books are fun for her.

[echomyst.livejournal.com]

We have quite a collection of grocery store twist ties! T likes Trader Joe's too: food samples, kid-sized shopping carts, and colouring corner... what's not to like?

Anything to get the kids reading is good :-)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I'm also not interested in actively promoting franchise attachment; in particular, when buying clothes I actively avoid clothing with licensed characters on it. However, since these are _my_ principles and not _Gwen's_ I'm happy to sacrifice them for her when I know that doing so will bring her great pleasure. Our birthday gift to her was two Peppa Pig t-shirts; she adores Peppa videos, and one of her friends at nursery had the same shirts, and she was so delighted at the fact that her friend had Peppa on her clothes! We're also now on our second pair of shoes which are modelled after Disney's "Cars" -- which neither of us have seen. She's picked them solely because shoes that look like cars are awesome and, right now, red is her favorite color. The other pair of shoes we bought over Christmas (we had to do emergency shoe shopping when her first pair of car shoes broke en route) were Elsa/Anna shoes. She got introduced to Frozen at nursery, but I believe the draw of these shoes was more their blue and silver shininess than the fact that they were Frozen shoes.

I think my position comes down to this: I won't buy things BECAUSE they have licensed characters on them, and if there is no compelling reason to do so, I won't buy them at all. But if having a shirt with Peppa on it, or shoes that looks like cars, thrills my daughter to pieces, irrespective of the fact that they are part of a franchise, then I have no trouble contributing to the franchise.

[(Anonymous)]

Same here...we just don't do gift giving, so I guess I wouldn't really buy for an occasion.

She had full choice over shoes. I would have bought her the Elsa/Anna shoes if she picked them. She didn't. She showed me all the princesses, introduced their stories and picked the silver/shiny shoes. I was surprised. But hey, she has the choice at least to decide. She picked Ninja Turlte shoes even though she has no idea what those actually are. She just thinks they are strong brave characters! Her friend gifted her an Elsa doll and Frozen sticker book - she's happy!

I think though when we buy all franchise only options, we are not really giving them a choice to decide either. Of course, they will love it, it was special from someone who cares, and a character they like, but maybe they would have picked something completely different if given a choice.

So, we are not opposed to it. I do enjoy Disney movies. Just not all the commercial craze behind it. And it's one craze after another. Moderation, is what I hope she gets out of it. That you don't have to get caught up in everything. I think the whole avoiding everything and denying everything backfires completely!

[smittenbyu]

uggh..that was me..forgot to login!

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Before we went shoe shopping, Gwen was positive she wanted purple shoes. And the first pair she tried on were these amazing glittery purple shoes that I would've died for at her age. She certainly seemed to like them -- until she spotted the red car shoes and immediately lost all interest in the purple sparkly ones! I'm pleased that she likes cars, and red, and equally pleased that she also likes blue and sparkly (the other pair we ended up with), and hope that it will always be so easy to promote such wellrounded interests.

[sistrmoon.livejournal.com]

My little likes Cars and Tayo the little Bus and Thomas, but not through any intentional action of mine. A lot harder to do no screen time til 2 with the 2nd kid! I did it with my first:)

[echomyst.livejournal.com]

It's the other way around for us. Nowadays, our almost-five-yr-old plays with her 16-month-old sister while I cook, whereas when we had just the eldest, I had to either wear her on my back while prepping dinner or turn on Signing Time. We don't have cable TV though, so she watched whatever is acceptable to us :-P

[sistrmoon.livejournal.com]

I wish I could say mine play happily together but it's mostly a lot of fighting. They are almost 4 years apart.

We've never had cable either. Too pricy!

[smittenbyu]

oh I agree. I think if we ever had a second one we would break all these rules!! he he....

Strawbux!

[dakini-bones.livejournal.com]

>XD

[lyssa027.livejournal.com]

LOL Starbox:) how cute :)