As I dutifully re-read the Paw Patrol book thrust into my hands by my three-year-old for what felt like the hundredth time that day, I found myself skipping over the section where the cartoon canine heroes receive “brand new trucks” and uniforms before embarking on their rescue mission. The jarring consumerism embedded in a children’s story felt particularly uncomfortable against the backdrop of the climate crisis, rising cost of living and worsening inequality. Why, I wondered, are these fictional puppies peddling brand new gas-guzzling vehicles without a second thought?
When my twin boys returned from preschool clutching plastic Paw Patrol figurines, a realisation crystallised: Paw Patrol isn’t merely entertainment – it’s an invisiblised marketing machine. With a franchise valued at over $14 billion and merchandise ranging from lunchboxes to bedroom furniture, virtually anything a child might desire can be acquired with Paw Patrol branding.
This commercial strategy extends into the digital realm. A 2018 University of Michigan study found that recognisable characters in the game Paw Patrol: Air and Sea Adventures would “express disappointment if players did not purchase items with real money.” In fact, the study’s senior author described the early childhood app market as a “wild west, with many apps appearing more focused on making money than the child’s play experience.” The commercialisation runs deeper than mere consumerism, however. A 2020 paper published in the journal Crime, Media, Culture by researcher Liam Kennedy argued that Paw Patrol “encourages complicity in a global capitalist system that (re)produces inequalities and causes environmental harms.” Kennedy suggested the show echoes “core tenets of neoliberalism” by portraying government and politicians as either corrupt or incompetent while positioning the private Paw Patrol enterprise as the trusted solution for social services, crimefighting, and conservation.
You might be thinking, “It’s just Paw Patrol—calm down.” But the issue runs far deeper than a single television show. Children’s entertainment is thoroughly saturated with similar messaging that normalises extrinsic values of achievement, status, and wealth. From free toys with McDonald’s meals to superhero narratives that glorify individual heroism and consumer-driven solutions, these themes are omnipresent in children’s experiences. What makes this particularly challenging is that the economic system founded on these extrinsic values – achievement, status, wealth acquisition – simultaneously demands more from parents and caregivers. As living costs soar and working hours lengthen, children inevitably spend more time away from parents and caregivers and in front of screens (and, as childhood becomes more commercialised, parents and caregivers are needing to work longer and harder to earn more to pay for it!). The last thing I wish to do is join the chorus of voices criticising already-stretched parents and caregivers – that’s another multi-million dollar industry unto itself.
Parenting advice: A history of economic utility
In some ways, parenting guidance serving profit motives rather than children’s wellbeing is nothing new. Contemporary sleep training methods emerged in the late 19th century with, amongst others, Dr. Luther Emmett Holt’s influential 1894 manual The Care and Feeding of Children, which promoted early independence and rigid sleeping schedules. This marked a significant departure from historical infant sleep practices characterised by close physical contact and co-sleeping – approaches that remain the norm in many cultures worldwide.
Holt’s recommendations coincided with the Industrial Revolution’s dramatic social reorganisation. As families moved from multigenerational rural households to urban centres for factory work, and as women increasingly entered the workforce, getting babies to adapt to rigid family schedules became economically advantageous. Holt insisted that infants should never share beds with mothers because “there is always the temptation to frequent nursing at night, which is injurious to both mother and child.” He attributed night waking to “bad habits” like “when the child is taken from its crib whenever it cries” or to maternal “overfeeding”.
In the decades since, thousands of parenting experts have offered similar guidance, much of it (until the emergence of gentle/respectful/conscious parenting in the 2010s) fundamentally concerned with producing compliant children who fit conveniently into adult schedules. As educator Alfie Kohn observed in his book Unconditional Parenting, when we praise children for being “good,” we often mean simply that they were quiet and undemanding. After witnessing parents being congratulated for their child’s behaviour during a flight, Kohn wrote: “‘Good’ is an adjective often laden with moral significance. It can be a synonym for ethical or honourable or compassionate. However, where children are concerned, the word is just as likely to mean nothing more than quiet – or, perhaps, not a pain in the butt to me. […] I realised that this is what many people in our society want most from children: not that they are caring or creative or curious, but simply that they are well behaved.” How much is this for the benefit of children, parents and caregivers and their families, and how much is this ultimately in service to productivity and profit maximisation?
The modern parenting advice industry has evolved into a multi-billion pound enterprise spanning books, apps, coaching services, and specialised products. What began with figures like Dr. Holt has transformed into a commercial ecosystem where parenting ‘experts’ often have financial incentives aligned with financial interests rather than children’s developmental needs. Many bestselling sleep training methods, for instance, are marketed alongside specialised cribs, monitors, and sleep aids, creating a profitable feedback loop that positions independent sleep as both a developmental milestone and a consumption opportunity.
Caught between systems and values
Today’s families find themselves wedged between competing forces:
- Entertainment and media for children (and adults) that relentlessly promote extrinsic values of wealth, status, and consumption;
- Family structures increasingly isolated from multigenerational support, struggling with time poverty, financial burdens, the demands of work and inadequate childcare systems, and;
- Parenting advice industries that prioritise productivity, separation, efficiency and compliance over emotional wellbeing, attachment and intrinsic values development.
The consequences extend beyond merely reinforcing extrinsic values in both the hearts and minds of children, and society as a whole: the fundamental parent-child relationship itself appears to be shifting in troubling ways. In their book Hold On to Your Kids, developmental psychologist Dr Gordon Neufeld and physician Gabor Maté present compelling evidence that many children today have become “peer-oriented” rather than “parent-oriented” – looking to friends and classmates rather than family for their primary sense of attachment, identity formation, and behavioural codes; including their values.
This peer orientation, they argue, isn’t a natural development but rather the result of specific cultural and economic pressures that have systematically weakened the parent-child attachment bond. When parents and caregivers are increasingly absent – physically or emotionally – due to the demands of life and work, children naturally seek attachment elsewhere. The resulting peer orientation creates what Neufeld and Maté call an “attachment void,” where children appear connected but lack the deep nurturing relationships necessary for healthy development.
The consequences are profound. Peer-oriented children often display greater conformity, anxiety, and alienation. They become more susceptible to consumer culture and less resilient to life’s challenges; Neufeld and Maté attribute the rise in bullying, mental health struggles and suicides among young people to peer attachment. Without the secure base that parent-oriented attachment provides, children struggle to develop authentic identities and the emotional regulation skills needed for healthy adulthood.
Particularly concerning is how this orientation reversal creates a feedback loop reinforcing extrinsic values. Peer cultures, without adult guidance, naturally gravitate toward what Neufeld and Maté describe as “pursuing contact and connection without the tempering influences of caring and responsibility.” The resulting youth culture often becomes preoccupied with status, appearance, and material possessions – the very values that children’s entertainment (and the wider media environment that we’re all subject to) already heavily promotes.
Reclaiming parenting for human flourishing
What might an alternative approach look like? It begins with recognising that our current parenting landscape isn’t inevitable but rather the product of specific economic and social arrangements prioritising productivity and consumption over human flourishing.
Our research at Common Cause Foundation shows that most people – including parents and caregivers – hold predominantly intrinsic values centred on care, connection, and creativity. Yet we systematically underestimate how widely these values are shared, creating a “perception gap” that may make advocating for family-friendly policies and practices more difficult than it should be.
Addressing this challenge requires action at multiple levels. Parents and caregivers need structural support – from adequate parental leave and flexible working arrangements, to alternative education models and intergenerational community building – that enables them to prioritise the attachment relationship. Research shows that children raised with emphasis on care, creativity, and community develop greater resilience, empathy, and life satisfaction than those raised primarily with extrinsic motivations. Children need entertainment options that nurture intrinsic values alongside opportunities for unstructured play and meaningful connection. And society needs a broader conversation about what kind of children it is that we want to raise: compliant consumers or compassionate, creative citizens. Ultimately what’s needed are entirely different economic, political and social systems underpinned by intrinsic values, systems that prioritise life, equality, justice. The challenge might feel insurmountable, but there are groups of people working towards the necessary systemic change.
Common Cause Foundation itself has explored advertising’s profound impact on children’s values formation in the report ‘Think of Me as Evil?‘ documenting how commercial messaging systematically undermines the intrinsic values most parents and caregivers genuinely prioritise. The report calls for advertising regulation that acknowledges children’s particular susceptibility to marketing’s psychological effects.
Groups like Global Action Plan have taken this a step further and are working to end surveillance advertising to children, recognising that targeted digital marketing exploits children’s developmental vulnerabilities. Their research shows that 820 million digital profiles of UK children are auctioned every day in order to sell ads. They argue that children are more susceptible to the pressures of marketing, less likely to recognise paid-for content, and less likely to understand how data is used for these purposes than adults.
There are practical steps that parents and caregivers can take to elevate intrinsic values and diminish extrinsic values in their own homes:
- Reduce exposure to commercial advertising, apps and entertainment shows and books as much as possible in your own home. Be discerning about the values present in the content that your family consumes.
- Practice ‘values spotting’ with children by discussing the messages in their media: ‘I noticed Chase got a new truck. Do you think he needed a new one? What might be the impact of having new things all the time? What might be the alternative?’
- Support initiatives like Fairplay (formerly Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood), which advocates for policies protecting children from exploitative marketing. This article from 2015 based on their work has some great suggestions for how you might resist child-targeted advertising.
- Join community toy libraries or exchange groups that reduce consumption while building neighborhood connections and start a conversation with your children about why you’re doing this and don’t just buy new things.
As I watch my boys arrange their Paw Patrol figures in imaginative scenarios entirely of their own making – involving sharing and cooperation – I’m reminded that children naturally gravitate toward intrinsic values when given the space to do so. So how might we, time poor, sleep deprived, overworked parents and caregivers, stand up to a multibillion pound advertising strategy staffed by armies of PhD psychologists that is eroding those instincts? We might attempt to counterbalance this in our homes, through our presence, our conversations, and our family and community cultures, but the real challenge for modern parents and caregivers isn’t simply resisting individual problematic messages in children’s media. It’s recognising and pushing back against an entire economic system that positions children as consumers, parents and caregivers as economic units, and families as inconvenient obstacles to productivity. By reclaiming the primacy of the parent-child relationship and advocating for social structures that support it, we can begin shifting toward parenting values that serve children and society, rather than merely the economy.