Families need to be strengthened, and advertisers have a responsibility to support that, Stanton says. Giving a child false dreams or perpetuating the notion that in order to succeed, he or she must have every new fad product, is troubling.

"It's people serving at the altar of the credo that 'he who dies with the most toys wins,'" he says. "In trying to run that rat race, we don't have the time to volunteer down at the soup kitchen, to volunteer at church, to go visit the old folks' home -- to pay some time and attention to people who need us."

The matter really hit home for Stanton after the birth of his first child, Olivia, more than two years ago. Together, he and his wife did a lot of soul-searching about the kind of home life they wanted. "How can we keep our daughter from desiring the latest designer shoes that come out? How can we keep the world from defining who she is going to be?"

Stanton urges parents not to let the market tell them who they are. And he asks people to make time for one another. Too often, he says, families share the space of a home, but the members don't connect. Dad is on the Internet. Mom is upstairs watching a movie on the VCR. The kids are playing video games.

"We always have to be busy. We always have to be engaged in something else. And, quite tragically, that's being engaged in something other than interpersonal relationships with loved ones."