As parents we want our kids to be happy and healthy. To achieve this seemingly simple goal we ensure our children exercise regularly and eat fruit and vegetables.
No, really we do. Well some of us do. Sometimes.
Ok, maybe it’s more that I heard of a tribe living in remote Guinea where they eat nothing but green vegetables. And they like it.
But that’s only because they’ve never heard of marketing. So they’ve never been subjected to the barrage of images that hypnotises us into eating rubbish that thirty years ago our parents would not have even fed to the dog.
At no time is this more prevalent than Easter. For our Guinea readers, Easter is a time of celebration where we gorge ourselves on as many chocolate eggs as our stomachs can handle (sometime more).
And by celebrating I mean taunting diabetics with our disregard for their feelings and our own health and waistlines.
No wait that’s not right either… it’s a time where families come together and recognise the beauty of new life. We do this by eating enough sugar to put the children of our personal trainers through private school.
And really Easter is about the children. And not just of our personal trainers and dentists. It’s about the ability of our kids to develop the analytical capacity to choose from an endless ocean of chocolate options. It’s about their negotiation skills – the ability to utilise pester power on parents.
And ultimately it’s about learning the lesson that too much chocolate will make you run around like a banshee before collapsing in a heap. A lot of children have problems with this last lesson so they may wish to repeat the exercise a few times.
And by a few times I mean thirty years.
Some traditionalists claim Easter is seven-weeks long. These people are way out of touch. In the modern world Easter begins December 27 and is marked by the appearance of hot cross buns and the aforementioned eggs on supermarket shelves.
It lasts until the shops no longer have stock. So about May/June.
Now some will try to tell you that Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus. That it’s a time of reflection. A time to be spent with family to recognise a major religious event where the Son of God died for our sins.
But Marketing tells me these people are what scientists call ‘kooks’ and/or dinosaurs. These scientists may or may not be on the payroll of Marketing but they wear lab coats and produce ‘studies’ about how 9 out of 10 dentists love Easter, so I must believe them.
And after all, these ‘kooks’ also believe Christmas is about goodwill and peace on earth. And – most shockingly – that Christmas is a single day!
That’s right. One solitary day. Not a four-month long festival of commercialism and inciting toddlers to nag us for Elsa’s new green dress.
Can you imagine?
You had me at chocolate eggs. I didn’t read anything past that point.