The AP reports that Pyper and Sadie Vance, ages 7 and 9, are taking their cute little rage to the streets. The sisters’ parents were forced to cancel their cable because they could no longer afford it due to high gasoline prices. The two fashioned some protest signs and hit the streets in downtown Salt Lake City. Details, inside…
The article says,
Cable TV was one of the family’s budget-cutting casualties, leaving Sadie, 9, and her 7-year-old sister without their favorite cartoons and shows.
“Gas prices are too high,” Sadie said. “I just decided to come and protest so they’d go down.”
The girls marched through downtown Monday chanting and carrying signs made from old campaign signs.
“All of my mom’s monny goes to the gas tank!” Pyper’s sign read. Sadie carried a sign asking drivers to honk to lower gas prices – adding that her mom had to cut “cabel.”
The girls got some waves and a few thumbs-up to show support.
“I think it’s great,” said Hamid Tayeb, who was walking past on his lunch break. “It’s unfortunate that kids are doing it before we do.”
Fight the power!
Angry kids protest gas prices after losing cable TV [AP] (Thanks to Miryam!)
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Oh, and what sorts of things have Sadie and Pyper seen mommy and daddy protesting?
@jpx72x: uhm isn’t canceling unnecessary expenditures as food and gas costs rise a good thing? Like people have fixed incomes, when one cost goes up another expenditure should go down or else you’re reducing the amount your saving, or even worse dipping into savings/credit spending. I don’t understand you people. If someone has financial troubles you yell at them for wasting their money. These people are adjusting their costs to live within their budgets and you yell at them for doing that. which is dumb.
hrm…they are fighting for cable? seems a lil odd…
hello bunny-ears
Ug… Kids: Do you pay taxes? Bills? Do you have a job? No? Then Shut Up! Go play in the yard until you pay taxes and vote–then you can complain.
God, I love kids!!
This would be more impressive if the kids were saying they were starving because all of mommy’s money was going in the gas tank.
America has had cheaper prices than the rest of the world for a long time and it has bred a nation of people who shop as a leisure activity and waste food and resources because consumption has been so cheap. This is a wake up call to get with the program the rest of the world has been on for awhile. Consume as you need, not for the sake of amusing yourself temporarily or acting on wants.
Someone teach these girls how to use Bittorrent stat. No internet? That’s what the neighbor’s wifi is for.
And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we’re spolied….seriously, our impoverished have it better than 90% of the people out there.
@Trai_Dep: “Of course they’re going to only be focused on the world that’s 5″ in front of their faces. They’re seven. And nine. Jeezus.”
The problem is that people are treating this as an actual news story, and not kids being kids.
If it was kids being kids, it wouldn’t be on this website, and it wouldn’t labeled as “Civil Disobedience”
We rag on news programs like Fox for showing cute stories of no merit or substance instead of actual informative journalism, and this is 100% Fox-like material right here. Consumerist might as well also put up an article of a cat dressed like Che next, instead of something that actually tells the public about anything.
This is a non-story. This is a fluff piece of no informative value, and thus devalues everything involving actual, valid complaints over the price of gas.
Yeah… that protest will convince the gas companies to lower prices so kids can watch tv. Good plan. Although, maybe the parents could have waited until their spelling homework was complete…
Go play outside kids. Take your spellers.
@kcrusher: Oh, and let’s not forget the rising cost of groceries, as well (as seen here on consumerist)!
Dammit, I’m only twenty-five, going back to school (again), and feel like I’m never going to get to afford anything!
Another example of poor parenting!
Blaming “Big __noun__” for your poor judgment and poor money management. The kids are learning that there is no such thing as personal responsibility and that all problems or challenges they have in life are someone else’s fault and not a result of their own choices.
There’s no mention of what kind of vehicle the parents drive. Do they own a tiny hybrid car? Do they own a sensible fuel efficient sedan? Or do they own a big gas guzzling SUV? If the latter, I have no sympathy for them. They should either shut up, suck it up, and suffer the consequences, or sell it and buy something sensible and more fuel efficient.
And considering their spelling and grammar skills, spending less time watching TV and more time doing homework would do them a world of good. Unfortunately, they’re out demonstrating their ignorance instead of learning spelling and grammar to overcome their ignorance.
I’m sure they’re looking forward to a life of poverty and victimhood and welfare checks.
Hey Consumerist! Could you do a follow-up on this and find out what kinds of vehicles their parents own?
One more example of their poor parenting… Based on that lady who protested high gas prices by firebombing a Starbucks, why are those kids not at least protesting in front of a Starbucks? Don’t they know that Starbucks is the ringleader of the “Big Oil” conspiracy?
Bwess their widdle hearts. I want to see their faces when mom has to explain to them that the rising cost of gas has made the cost of manufacturing plastics increase as well. Translation: No Bratz dolls for their birthdays either!
I love how all you people are telling these girls to go outside or read a book while you are plastered to your computer screen.
They are 7 and 9 years old. How would you ahve acted at that aged if your parents took away something like the cable.
In the words of D’mite:
Read a book, read a book, read a motherf$&%in’ book!
Seriously, my kids won’t get cable TV, they’ll have to grow up like I did, no cable, no video game consoles, and no internets until they’re in High School. Though dad will secretly have his pay TV and Internets in the man-cave.
@jpx72x: uh, the mother?? it must be interesting to live in a world where asexual reproduction is alive and well in humans.
@S-the-K: THEY ARE SEVEN AND NINE. As in THIRD and FIFTH grade. Were you spelling perfectly at that age? I doubt it!
I think it’s great!! Now the kids can read books and play outside – constructive things – intead of sitting on the couch all day staring at the stupid-box. They look like they haven’t been out of the house in months!!
I am plastered to my screen because I am at work. The second I leave the office I am off doing something, somewhere. I don’t even own a television. Why? Because my parents never let me sit in front of the TV and develop lazy habits that continue into adulthood. We played board games, read stories, talked, etc. I was not raised by a television!!@Metropolis:
If the kids were losing gymnastics classes, piano lessons, a musical instrument, swimming lessons, soccer leagues, or anything of that sort, I’d feel empathy.
The only thing I would do for them is give them a library card application form.
“Cute rage”??? I find it rather infuriating instead of cute. Instead of teaching kids about the reality of life, the parents propagate the sense of entitlement.
Because of oil price spike, the cost of food and fertilizer goes up and hundreds of thousands of kids in Africa will die of starvation. But hey, it is obviously more important news when two brats in Utah lose their cable.
On one hand, good that they’re able, willing, and capable of protesting. On the other hand, I think they’re protesting the wrong thing. But that’s just my opinion.
@stanner: Um. YES.
Or maybe they could do things around the house to help mom and dad. My summer vacations were spent running around the house, reading books, and doing household chores now and then to help out. It taught my brother and I that you need to occupy yourself with SOMETHING instead of just sitting there like a lump on a log. If nothing else, it kept us active. I didn’t become overweight until I moved out after high school and didn’t have mom constantly poking and prodding me to get off my lazy butt.
“Wha??? You mean to tell me that my precious little snowflakes should do more than watch TV and stay out of my hair? I mean, without my cable what am I going to do with my children?”
I hear this line (moreless) on a hour to hour basis when someone calls in 3 months behind and yells at me because their cable is out. And its funny, they ask me,”What am I going to do with my kids now?” as if its my problem and as if I should honestly answer that. And I’ve come close so many times to saying,”Well, how about taking them to the park, or reading a book to them, or doing BASIC parenting.”
Whatever happened to little girls selling lemonade to make extra cash?
@IfThenElvis: YES.
I’m canceling my cable as well. My six-year-old daughter doesn’t mind, though. She loves to jump rope, play at the park, go to the library, and on those days where a movie’s on TV that she really wants to watch, we’ll ride the bus or walk over to my parents’ house to do so.
I don’t buy the whole “it’s too dangerous to let your kids outside at all these days” argument. I always supervise my kid, and seriously — it was just as dangerous back then as it is now, sometimes even more so (NYC in the 80s, according to my husband). I also don’t believe that money should be the sole factor in deciding that you’re ready to have a kid. A factor, yes, but not the only one.
Not having cable will change your life (for the better).
@speedwell: It’s a stupid thing to protest, let alone complain about, regardless of age. Not only that, but it’s a nonsensical complaint.
Now excuse me, I’m going to protest that the cost of oil is preventing me from buying an iPhone, which is the true problem with gas prices. I can’t buy excessive tech!
Eh go outside and play and catch up on your school work. It may be summer but with that kind of spelling they need the review and badly. Oh vey the priorities of children these day…
Get a paper route, cut a lawn, rake some leaves. Do some chores for older people in the neighborhood. Get a job kids.
Cable is ridiculously expensive. In my area after taxes and two cable boxes “Family Cable” is $75.00 a month. We dumped it for satellite but that option turned out to cost the same with even less service!
Time to break out the bunny ears.
I think they should also protest the high price of cable.