A new Motrin commercial that seeks to appeal to mothers who “wear” their babies, and consequently have back pain, has been pulled after sparking a flurry of outrage from “babywearing” moms on the internet, and threats of boycott.
I don’t get it. Apparently these “Twitter moms” and “mommy bloggers” :rolleyes: are really offended at this ad. This article says “Some moms saw the ads as snarky pokes at motherhood.” This one said the moms saw the ad as “condescending.” This article says the ad “trivialized women’s pain and the method of carrying babies.”
What??
Look, childbirth hurts; breastfeeding hurts; carrying around an infant or toddler in a sling can hurt too. Do these moms think they will be seen as weak or bad mothers if they admit that some aspects of motherhood can be painful?
Are they so defensive of their “babywearing” lifestyle that they seek to silence any claim that babywearing might cause back pain?
How is this commercial any different from the Suave commercial, where it follows a woman through her life, as she has kids, and starts to look all haggard and tired, then when she uses Suave, she is all happy and beautiful again. You know, the one with the really annoying music. Anyway, doesn’t this commercial portray motherhood as wearing women down, causing them to “let go” of their looks? And that this product, Suave, can help make them fresh and beautiful again? Google “Suave commercial” and you will find that all the “mommy bloggers” love this commercial (well, except for this one - funny commentary!)
By the way, mysteriously, it is impossible to find a video of this commercial online anywhere. Weird.
That clip seems to be only part of the commercial, it doesn’t include the pitch at the end? So it’s harder to judge the gestalt (heh, the gestalt of a commercial, as if). I mean, the pitch at the end might have made it better. Somehow.
Or is that nanosecond showing of the Motrin brand supposed to be the entire pitch?
I am neither a woman nor a mother, but the commercial just seems kind of lame to me. The only part that really seems like it might be offensive is the part at the beginning where it refers to carrying babies as a fashion. Of course, it may well be true in the U.S. And if that were the part that moms were outraged about, I’ll bet they wouldn’t admit it.
So my vote is for stupid commercial, but not evil.
Found the Suave ad: go to http://www.suave.com/ click “our story” and “advertising” and click the first ad…
God I hate that commercial. Why? Well because it kind of portrays a woman’s life as being all about getting married and popping out babies. Such as the way it starts off with the woman showing off her engagement ring, then in a wedding dress, then suddenly pregnant, then with two kids and pregnant again. Where in this montage of her life is her career? And where is her husband to help her out with the little kids running about? And it also perpetuates the concept that you “let yourself go” when you have kids. Like, you’re so busy that you don’t even have time to wash your hair. :rolleyes:
Yeah I get that the mommies are outraged because the ad says that babywearing is in “fashion.” But the fact is, it’s entirely true. I hardly ever saw moms with baby slings and baby backpacks before a few years ago. Now you see them everywhere. True, humans have been carrying their babies this way for millennia, such as the Native American papoose, and third world women wearing infants tied to their backs while working the fields, so on and so forth. But at least in the US, in the past 50 years or so, I don’t think it’s been very common until recently. Now you can see these being sold in stores everywhere, and there’s tons of Facebook and LiveJournal “babywearing” groups etc. It definitely is “in fashion” these days. And rightly so, since it seems to be a convenient and practical way for parents to carry their infants whilst going about their business. But to be so offended by the suggestion that this may cause some back pain is just over-the-top in the usual internet mommy fashion.
I’m offended - I wore that Baby Bjorn at least as much as my wife did; in fact, back when my kid had colic he wouldn’t go to sleep without me giving him a 45-minute walk around the neighborhood. Don’t babywearing *dads *deserve painkillers, too?
Yeah! Where’s all the sympathy for the dads? Where are the haircare products for the haggard dads?
That’s another huge pet peeve of mine - how commercials portray the women as being the only ones who do any parenting or housekeeping. I’d be really offended if I was a dad.
Sorry, that ad is eyerollingly condescending. Just the first two lines…
“Wearing your baby seems to be in fashion. I mean, in theory it’s a great idea…”
Aaargh! It’s got the whole ‘well we’ll humour you but I bet you’ll think better of it in a year or two’ vibe going. Plus, that actress’s delivery is horrible - it compounds the condescend a hundred fold.
Plus, a good baby carrier should not hurt your back. I don’t believe that “baby wearers” get any more back pain than non-baby-wearers. People who don’t own slings are just as likely to have a clingy baby that demands to be carried all the time and what happens then? You pick them up and cart them round on your hip - horrible, horrible position for back pain. Whereas if you have a good carrier you can plop them on in a nice symmetrical back-friendly position and forget about them for an hour or so.
And the proper response to chronic back pain is to do some damn back exercises, not pop a pill. And I say this as someone who has chronic back pain.
I’m not going to get up in arms about it to the point of getting the ad yanked. But there’s no way in a pink fit that company would get my business.
My kids are all grown up and I never wore them when they were small, and I’m close to offended by that ad. The whole tone sounds sarcastic, the facts are just plain wrong, and the general idea that mothers only do this because it’s in fashion is incredibly condescending. “It’s a good pain, I do it for my kid”? In other words, “I’m just one of those airhead mothers (call me future soccer mom) who can’t even think of not doing every single thing that the baby magazines tell me to.” (this month)
I think it was a little condescending. Nothing to get worked up about or anything.
But it makes it sound like “baby wearing” is some fashion statement that women do because of faddish pop science. Stuff like “supposedly it’s a great bonding experience” clue you in that whoever made this commercial thinks its a crock. And the line “and who knows what else they’ve come up with” ignores that nobody is “coming up” with anything- people in every single other culture over the course of millions of years have done this.
Also, “I’ll put up with the pain, because it’s a good kind of pain- it’s for my kid” is a pretty outrageous thing to say. And “Besides it totally makes me look like an official mom” not only makes women sound like childish simpletons, but also implies once again that babywearers are doing it for other people’s perceptions.
In short, this isn’t treating their target audience like competent adults. Not a great way to sell your product.
I was just thinking about this today- I’ve traveled enough and realized that American and I guess Western Europe are the only places on Earth that don’t tie their babies to their backs. In Cameroon nearly every woman everywhere has a kid tied to her back with a wide piece of cloth. In China I see a mixture of blankets and ropes, and little bamboo baskets and chairs that can be worn to the front or back. I don’t get why we want to haul our babies around in something that weighs more than the baby itself.
Thanks for spelling it out. Maybe the reason that this angers people so much is that there’s some truth to the commercial’s sarcastic take on the popularity of baby carriers. It touches on a recent phenomenon of babies being seen as “accessories” or status symbols, or telling moms that they need to accessorize their children. Just look at all the baby mania in popular media, covering in-depth what kind of shoes Suri Cruise wears or what kind of sippy cup Shiloh Pitt drinks from. You get the idea.
Parenthood is seen by companies and advertisers as a huge opportunity to separate parents from their cash, by convincing them that they need this special contraption or that special device. For example, this baby sling that’s basically just a simple piece of fabric for $58, or this one in fashion prints for $94. Most of these items didn’t even exist 5 years ago. They’re a whole new line of baby products that’s come out recently, and I’m sure they’re all “new,” “unique” and patented designs, even though they’re all basically the same thing that third-world moms fashion themselves out of plain cloth.
Take all that and add to it the multitude of various babywearing blogs and groups that are everywhere online, and it all begins to look a little ridiculous. (Just look at how fast the babywearing moms spread their anger online, thus getting the commercial pulled.) It’s the commercialistic, consumeristic aspect to it; that these things are being marketed like crazy to moms, and are way overpriced, and these moms have become so devoted, so loyal to this product, and make it into a whole “lifestyle” and “movement,” to the point that if you say anything that could even be construed as negative about it (such as babywearing may cause back pain), they launch a boycott campaign. You can see the same type of thing with breastfeeding, cloth diapers, co-sleeping, homemade babyfood, etc… (all of which are good things, but are pretty normal standard parenting activities that have been taking place for thousands of years - nothing new here).
So, maybe the Motrin ad was poking a bit of fun at all of this hoopla, and that’s what got the mommas so mad.
p.s. Looking through the “The Sling Station” web site, which show photo after photo of women wearing their kids in various carriers, I found this, the one and only daddy on the site (and quite gorgeous too!) Don’t these women have husbands that will carry the babies around too? Or are they all at work while the woman stay at home with the kids? :rolleyes:
There’s a big industry out there to separate parents from their cash, certainly, but I’m not sure these are the best examples of it.
You first link for example looks to me like the same thing that’s marketed over here as a “Hug-a-bub” - I have one in the closet (to be honest I never liked it much - too hard to tie) and IIRC it’s about 6 metres long. $9 to $10 a metre for a quality fabric is actually not that much over the odds.
As for the second one - yeah, it’s expensive and pretty. But no more expensive than a nice shirt - and it’s basically serving the same purpose, since when you’ve got a sling on it pretty much covers up whatever else you’re wearing up top. I wouldn’t pay as much. But I’m cheap. And have you seen how much people spend on strollers these days? Crikey!
Poking fun at people when you’re trying to get them to buy your product? Hmmm… good idea or bad idea? So hard to judge…
A couple of people upthread have done a really good job of explaining how the Motrin ad was condescending and offensive. So I guess I’ll step up and try to point out how YOU are condescending and offensive. Suggesting that people are having babies as fashion accessories is offensive. The Motrin ad does suggest that, and so do you. The Brooke Shields VW commercials successfully poke fun at the notion that people are having babies for consumeristic, commercial reasons. The Motrin ad, on the other hand, buys into that notion and perpetuates it. As, apparently, do you. It’s not that the ‘mommas’ are so defensive about their parenting choices that they’ll boycott anybody who says anything negative about babywearing. It’s that the Motrin ad suggested their parenting choice was really just a fashion statement and erroneously warned that babywearing was somehow more likely than other methods of carrying a child to cause back pain.
I get that you don’t like that the people who were condescended to and offended by that ad actually voiced their displeasure about it and had an effect. But I don’t get why. What the hell is it to you? Do you believe that poor little Motrin needs defending from the big, bad momma-offenderati? Do you think babywearing is SUCH a ridiculous choice that it doesn’t deserve to be defended against a crass commercial attempt to profit from spreading erroneous information about it?
OMG, I want to have sex with those men right now. (Who’s willing to babysit those adorable tots for an hour?) Seriously, men have NO IDEA how hot that is - it’s the female equivalent of those T&A calenders in the mechanic’s garage. They may be just enough to trigger a new baby fit!
Or you look and say “sorry, you need to walk” or you put them in the stroller. As the mom of two kids a year apart in age, if your walking child WANTS to be carried, that certainly doesn’t mean you need to pick them up. You get to be in charge.
(I picked up both my kids plenty, but on my terms. Tried multiple slings but never felt secure with them - I needed my hands on my kids when they were being carried. Seldom used a stroller. My kids put miles on their little shoes.)
The ad doesn’t do that. It says “wearing your baby seems to be in fashion,” which I think is pretty accurate, and mocks that. Nowhere does it say people are having babies as fashion accessories. It says the carriers make a woman look like an “official mom,” and having read this thread I can see why that irritates some women.
Again- where? The narrator viewed ‘looking like an official mom’ as a positive, but I think that’s more about the “fashionable” quality of the slings, not having the babies.
That may be wrong, but it’s the whole point of the commercial. You’d expect that part to be misleading.
Bullshit. It suggested that “babywearing” was somehow more likely to cause back pain than not carrying your baby. Some of us irresponsible, non-offenderati have actually employed these gadgets called strollers, bassinets, cribs, and toddler feet on occasion.
