"Don't steal childhood away this Christmas", Australian bishop says

Dec 19, 2007 15:00 GMT  ·  By

It's interesting to watch the way history repeats itself over and over again, the only differences between the loops coming from the means of expression of those involved. What went on during the Roman Empire expansion couldn't have been covered by the "media" of the time at the extent the Internet allows us to do nowadays.

The best way to reach somebody and to get him top listen to you is using audio-visual means of communicating, which often capture your interlocutor's attention much better than just one of the two. You can always stop reading a letter or you can do other things while talking on the phone, but when somebody is bombarding you with both it's a tad more difficult to avoid the message.

That's why the Archbishop of Melbourne Philip Freier decided to use YouTube and create a clip that encompasses both strong video imagery, in the form of pictures going around as a slideshow, and talk about the sexualization of children in the media and marketplace. "Children have a right to their childhood, but we're stealing it away. The result is children obsessing about their body image and fashion, and young people becoming caught up in a culture of sex, drugs and violence", Freier said. "The best Christmas present we can give our children is a release from these pressures."

More easily said than done, the standards today aren't going to change just because somebody politely asked for it to happen and neither did that happen over two thousand years ago, the last time that children were exposed to the similar pressure. The only difference is that we now convince them that what they are going through is good for them, whereas back then they were forced by their families to endure everything because of social needs that had to be fulfilled, like marrying at too young an age.

This cry for help comes as a direct result of a survey conducted by a Christian Charity, Mission Australia, that found that one in three of the 29 thousand respondents aged 11-24, male and female alike, cited body image as a major concern.