...I grew up in the 70s, and I see way way more of this now than when I was a kid. Boob jobs are common. Tattoos are everywhere. Piercing is way up -- Heck, I remember when getting a double ear piercing (early 80s) was considered unusual. Photo retouching is FAR easier now than it was in the days before photoshop. The fashion magazines are racier now also, I think.
I'm glad your kids turned out right, Frank, but I still think there is value in being aware of what is out there and the impact it can have.
I don't dispute what you're saying at all, Art, and I don't have kids, so I'm not really qualified to have any opinions. But I have 'em anyway.
I'll start by saying I'm glad I'm not trying to raise a kid in today's world. It's a busy, confusing, and conflicted world out there. But I'm real leery of the extreme ends of any ideological spectrum. I think sheltering a kid too much as just as harmful in the long run as letting a kid run amok and do whatever they want. (I'm not implying at all that you're at either end of that spectrum, BTW. Just expounding on your comments.)
Just to play devil's advocate...what is the real harm in tattoos? Or piercing, or bright green hair? In our day in the '70s, we were rebels with long hair, bell bottoms, and music that our grandparents thought was obscene. But we turned out alright for the most part. My sister's kids and their friends, now all adults, were a bunch of baggy-panted skateboard and video game punks listening to death metal and hardcore rap. With a few exceptions, they've grown up into good people with decent careers ahead of them, including a few in the military.
I'm a living example of what Frank was talking about. I was somewhat of a hell-raiser kid. I was never arrested (despite a few brushes with the police), but by the time I was 16, I'd been in plenty of trouble, ranging from shoplifting, truancy, drugs and more. This was despite my parents' best efforts, and trust me, I have two of the finest parents a kid could hope for. They made rules, set boundaries, and enforced both. They taught by example. They did their darnedest to show me what they considered the right way,
but (and it's a big
but) they also gave me enough freedom (rope) to learn on my own (hang myself), even when it pained them to watch. I was an adult by the time I got my first tattoo and the first piercing in my ear, and was in my 40s when I got the second of each, so I even carried some of my rebelliousness into adulthood. (Heck, I still do, and I have no regrets about that.) But all in all, I think I ended up being someone my folks are proud of. I was fortunate that they had the self-restraint to not over-react to my behavior, and still had the wherewithal to try to steer me in the correct direction.
My point in all this is that each generation will come up with new and improved ways to shock the previous ones. Parents will always be appalled at something their kids or their friends do. But as long as the parents provide an living example of "doing the right thing", most kids will eventually pick up on the idea and follow suit in their own way. I think in a way, that's what the Dove advertisement you linked to is saying.