How To Create a Consumer....from Birth!!!!

I am not talking about the parents of the said child (see blog title).  I am not talking about the sway tv ads have over impressionable minds. I am not talking about observing what  all your  little friends have. I am talking about a Gift Registry for Children...for Christmas and Birthdays, and whatever other occasions a child might be given a gift...Easter, Losing a Tooth, a Visiting Relative, Bribery for a passable Report Card.....etc.  I went to a get-together yesterday, part of which was to celebrate the Birthdays of a 7 year old and a 5 year old. I learned there that Toy R Us have to Registry for Children. I must say when it comes to being stunned in my life, this was added to that list of experience immediately.  At first I had trouble believing it....but soon realized it was no joke. Very clever of them (the toy store) to come up with such a marketing device.  Bring your child to the toys store, and let them point left, right, up, down, back and forth to all the things they want, regardless of cost, age appropriateness, safety, violence quota, or availability....Put it together, and what have you got....a mini-consumer right from the cradle. Now we as gift givers no longer have to think, to be creative, to expand the child's horizons with anything that is not on the shelf of ToysRUs!  This certainly leaves no surprises...just request exactly what you want. Voila...it appears. No more handknit sweaters from Grandma...heaven forbid she not get the Super Duper Exploding Whatever....As I think back to some of the gifts I have given my daughter, some of her favorites were things she had no ideas she was getting, and in some cases things she did not know existed (and they certainly were not exclusively from Toys R Us). Maybe my gut reaction will temper with time and I will see the value of this method....Why not just tell a host exactly what to serve for dinner when we are invited? I will have roast pork with garlic mashed potatoes, candied carrots, and a lemon souffle for dessert....should we always get exactly what we want?  What about poor kids? What if a parent is unemployed? What if you just don't think it healty to inundate your child with plastic gizmos from China. What about the gift of a special experience...A Children's Museum, a Science Museum..... Well, one thing is sure, that  practice of Re-gifting will go the way of the Dinosaur. I wonder what Seinfeld would have to say about that.