[dd74]

Rick: I'm also the father of a six-year-old girl, and I can tell you it would take something close to physical restraint to keep me from approaching whomever gave my kid that perfume sample, and strewning all of it onto the floor.

To say the least, I would be utterly appalled, and would immediately complain to the department store about this. These days, all it takes is one VERY LOUD VOICE to stir up these horrid purveyors of "fashion" to retract these products, or at least give them out to someone older than a minor. Especially if that voice comes from a dad inside a woman's make-up department, you would most definitely be heard. If not, I would not disregard a phone call to an attorney - I mean that.

That's very unnerving: what did your wife say? My wife would pitch a fit. I'd probably turn over a display case to be quite honest. Out here in L.A. you wouldn't believe the crap our daughters and sons are exposed to: lingerie for ten-year-olds, slogans such as what you posted; things of that nature.

For us, it gets even worse. We're in the animation business here, and I swear to you, I can barely let my kid watch cartoons, let alone television in general. The sex and violence in not just cartoons, but TV, is rampid -- and the commercials are even worse. Barbie is pregnant, the video games have no redeeming quality but to blow someone's head off, and then there's the sexually suggestive pre-teen clothing. It does not end, and it's on at all hours on, for example, Cartoon Network. Disney is passable, in at least the worst thing that could happen to a child is they get bombarded by Disney self-promotion - an evil in its own right, I dare say.

Still, you touched a HUGE NERVE with me, that's been bothersome since my daughter began to read and write. The world these days has shown me that no one but us parents care about our children. The others without children will never understand what a parent goes through in hopes of protecting their kids from these forces that surround them. Right now, I'm at the point of telling several parents that their kids can't have "play dates" with my daughter based on how their children want to "kill" things in the house or the back yard.

In Hollywood, the saying is that it's a young person's world, which means that it's not an old person's world. Well I'm starting to believe it's not a parent's world, either.