My views are in alignment with Lynn's. I posted a very similiar response at the website bloggingbaby a few months ago. It reads:

Children are not here on this earth to be used as walking billboards. Isn't there enough material consumption in the world (at the expense of other families and children in less developed countries) that Mrs. Hogg needs to use her child to promote more? Her entrepreneurial spirit could be put to much better use than this. She should watch the film "The Truman Show" and then ask herself how she feels about using her child as a toddling billboard.

And, the Hoggs might want to think about setting aside funds from the money they are earning for the therapy Jake will need someday when he realizes what they have made him into and he rebels.

The rampant consumption in our American culture is very sad. If everyone in the world consumed like the average American, we'd need 4 or 5 more planets. The earth cannot support the consumption that these companies are promoting by advertising on our clothes. Once the resources on this earth are used up (to manufacture, ship and sell the things we buy, most of which are wants, not needs) we cannot make another earth.

What planet will today's children — like Jake — inherit if Americans continue on our material-focused lifestyles? Being human is not about being a consumer. For the sake of future generations, we all have the moral responsibility to make conscious purchasing decisions and keep our footprint light.

Taking a hundred bucks a month, or even $350, to dress your kid in ads would be weird, but okay, college is getting more and more expensive these days and I could see a parent being that desperate when they look at the numbers thrown around in the media all the time.

But the price quoted as of this moment for one month's advertising on Jake--one month, mind, not even a year--is *$10,000*. Oh, but you get a $20,000 discount if you buy a whole year!

What the hell? That's not 'send Jake to college' money, that's 'make Mommy rich!' money. And the most recent actual *offer* is $1200, which is already ludicrous, though I presume they aren't intending to renew this sponsorship indefinitely.

Those default rates remove any thought in my mind that the motive is altruitistic, that this is just to make him money for college. This is just some idiot parent's idea of a 'get rich quick' scheme, and I feel sorry for the kid who has to be at the middle of it.

On the Road to Self-Supporting Children or Pimp my Kid?

...the nutjobs would be using it as yet another example of why gays and lesbians shouldn't be allowed to parent. But, since Salon is the only place I saw mention of this mess, I guess the mainstream media is asleep at the wheel and not being poked by its right-wing handlers.

Apparently, it's OK if bats*it straight people do idiotic things but not OK for lesbians to appear with their emotionally healthy and well-loved family on a PBS cartoon show about Vermont.

Thanks, Lynn. Nicely done, by the way.

I'm most disturbed by the supposed expert consulted:

"Michael Brody, chairman of the television and media committee of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, is not a BuyJake.com fan. 'Who knows what kind of pedophile is trolling Web sites looking for young people'"

How did this issue become about pedophilia? In what way is the mother exposing Jake to pedophilia?

Pedophilia is the new bogeyman.

To find out how much it would take to get Jake in one of the promotional onesies for my cult...(http://www.cafepress.com/shinracult.52716972)

I'm not convinced that the parent in question sees the beat-them-at-their-own-game brilliance to her efforts -- she refers to this as helping Jake with his "career" -- but I'm glad you all do.

Real wages are down. Decent jobs are growing increasingly scarce. The outsourcing of labor to the lowest international bidder means that, increasingly, people have to resort to means of income that heretofore would be called unconventional. Meanwhile consumer spending is up and we have a higher per capita debt than anyone except the credit industry and perhaps the mafia thinks is healthy.

So we get people selling advertising on their children.

Why is this a surprise to anyone? The Nike-sponsored birth of an athlete's child, complete with swoosh tatooed upon their tiny chest before being placed in mom's arms to snuggle, can't be far behind. especially if said mom can't afford health insurance.

but isn't this already Standard Operating Procedure? Considering the high percentage of t-shirts and hats that ALREADY have logos emblazoned on them, the only difference I can see between dressing your kid in a BuyJake.com outfit and a SpongeBob Squarepants outfit is that in the first case, the parents (and kid, by proxy) are GETTING money, and in the second, they're SPENDING it.

If it were my kid, I'd know which way I'd go. Take the money, because with today's spiralling prices for everything from sneakers to college, parents need all the help they can get.

Once again, Broadsheet purports to care about women and families, yet show that they're woefully out of touch with real people's lives.

As noted, at least she's making them pay for Jake running around in logos.

However, there's also something rather appropriate about making some money off of the sheer pervasiveness of modern advertising.

(Jake'll probably weather it fine. Golden Palace, however.....)

Who is really in the wrong here? This woman for asking people to pay her to wear their logos, or the rest of us who do it for free?

I specifically don't let my kids wear clothes to school with words on them (and they're young enough I can still control what they wear). Gap, Old Navy, Nike, cartoon characters, sports teams, whatever. I just don't like them. They wear them for play clothes (and we have a ton)... that's where I put the t-shirts from Grandma's latest cruise, shirts from their summer day camp at the rec center, last year's soccer shirt, and the inevitable GAP hand-me-downs from other kids. But they don't wear them to school. Call me old-fashioned, but I like my kids to at least leave home in the morning without looking like little ragamuffins, and without advertising anyone's products.

But, we also limit the TV, and we watch occasional Sponge Bob episodes on DVD because I can't stand the Attack of the Gimme's that they get from watching commercial TV.

I think selling advertising on a kid is pathologically weird... but it falls into the National Enquirer category of people who do equally weird things, so weird that it makes the news. When I start seeing it on every street corner, I'll pitch a fit. Until then, whatever. I feel sorry for the kid, but there are kids out there with a whole lot worse problems than that.