Consumerism

I'm not sure whether to be impressed or frightened by this -- help me decide.

Tonight, when O and I were driving home, we were stopped at a red light next to an office building. O looked at the sign and said, "Mom, is that insurance?" I made him repeat it because I wanted to be sure that's what he was saying, because, in fact, he was looking at an American Family Insurance sign. We're not entirely sure where he picked that up, but we're thinking he saw it on a commercial somewhere and got the logo stuck in his head.

It's not the first time something like this has happened. A month or so ago, he was in the backseat talking to himself and started saying, "Boo hoo! They like customers, I like cash!" He kept repeating it and we had no idea where he'd gotten it. Colin suggested I Google it and sure enough, it was a line from a Southwest Airlines commercial that he had likely seen during the football playoff games.

And around Christmas, he was playing with his phone and pretending to talk to "Peggy" -- a character in a Discover card ad. (I had to Google that one, too.)

So, that gets me back to my first point -- I don't quite know what to do with this. Maybe we're just better at tuning out the ads and he picks up more of the details and the stories being told. Maybe we should offer him up to a researcher on how kids interact with advertising. Maybe we should be impressed with his concentration and recall. Maybe we should stop letting him watch so much television (he really doesn't watch that much -- some Curious George, news and sports on weekends).