This is absolutely themost ridiculous thingI’ve read all week.
Editing an ad showing a father feeding his baby because pro-breast feeding group decided they didn’t like it? It’s not even an ad about the bottle/breast feeding debate. It’s a short clip in a longer ad for an anti-smoking campaign, yet they had a problem with it. What the hell is wrong with these people and the weak-ass government that would agree with them?
I would laugh them right out of my office.
Perhaps you didn’t get the memo, but men are not able to take care of children, especially infants. We just want to rape them, and that’s it.
Actually, from the report it seems the focus in ***this ***case is not “evil male syndrome”, but rather Breastfeeding Fundamentalism, apparently feeling that you may never portray a baby being bottle-fed in a positive context no matter what said context is. IMO that would lead us to expect them to object just as strenuously to portrayals of a woman bottle-feeding but I don’t have the background info on whether they do. I would not know about how it goes in NZ, but around here some of the more hardcore pro-breastfeeding and/or anti-formula activists (major overlap, but not necessarily absolutely the same) do seem sometimes to adopt an absolutist position.
And yes, really, what spinelessness.
I’m a shrill, judgmental bitchy pro-breastfeeding harpy, and this is stupid. Why don’t we instead make the knee-jerk assumption that he’s feeding the baby expressed breastmilk in that bottle?
Bottles aren’t evil, formula manufacturers are. :rolleyes:
This may be RO, but as a father of three children under 5, I find it mildly offensive that someone could nitpick an ad portraying a father caring for his children and assisting their mother in their feeding.
Formula manufacturers are evil? Why? Both my sons were raised on Similac because my at the time wife chose not to breast feed for her own personal reasons. They never had a problem, grew up just fine, now eat normally…???
I dunno the whole story, an actual mom will probably come in and tell it, but I think the deal is that the formula companies made a huge push in poorer African countries saying that formula is much better than breastmilk and now they’ve hooked these poor women into spending a shitload of money that could be better spent on basic needs. By the time anyone figures out the formula isn’t any better, their milk production has stopped and they have no choice but to keep buying formula.
That too. The short version is that I believe infant formulas should be used like insulin is used for diabetics - prescription only and for medical need.
The longer version would derail the thread. Let’s keep the outraged focused.
My daughter is fed formula from a bottle and I have no problem with it. In fact it makes me extremely happy. I would have loved to have been able to continue breastfeeding my daughter but it didn’t work out that way and frankly I would ask special interest groups to keep their guilt trips to themselves, TYVM.
I tried to breastfeed and it worked pretty well for about 4 or 5 days. At that point my daughter decided that nipples are the devil and would not even attempt to latch. If I tried to breastfeed her she made a face like, “Why do you hate me?!?” and screamed for an hour. At that point she moved to expressed milk in bottles but I wasn’t able to keep up a supply and after 6 weeks or so my body just gave up and stopped producing all together. She is on Similac now, perfectly healthy and happy, and is able to be fed by her daddy which is a super bonus. This morning he fed her a bottle so that I could sleep in a little bit longer than normal which was so awesome that I am surprised the formula makers don’t market their product based on that premise alone.
This. A thousand times. If we’re going to complain that the majority of childrearing duties fall on women, then we need to jump up and down and cheer when fathers (or males who might or might not be the fathers) are shown caring for an infant or child. When men get more involved in parenting, then men win. And women win. And kids win. Nobody loses, except for a few people who want to go back to the Good Old Days when everyone knew their place.
Indeed. Especially if we’re talking about kiwi dads, who do most of the work.
My son was a four pound premature C-section birth, he flat refused to latch on and nurse. I really hated the breast feeding fundamentalists, we just decided it was too risky to wait longer and started him a bottle(he drank 2 ounces first feeding!).
Later we found out if we were in the USA they wouldn’t have even let us take him home until he was five pounds, and he lost weight before we started him on formula.
Stupid and ridiculous to censor the ad in this way. Geez, it’s an anti-smoking ad. It doesn’t have anything to do with the breast milk vs. formula debate. It is say that the government was so weak that they bowed to this sort of pressure.
They made Piri Weepu sad. 
Exactly.
I don’t know if anyone needs to jump up and down and cheer, but a nod of approval is nice once in a while. 
This is in contrast to the female kiwi opinion of the average kiwi male, which is that he eats roots and leaves 
Where did that stupid panda book title come from anyhow, it annoys me
Si
It was more than a hit on their budget, in many cases. The first box of formula was free or reduced price. Later, when there was no money to buy enough, mothers would dilute what formula they could afford, causing malnutrition. And in the case of powdered foumula, the dangers of using untreated local water could be extreme.
Not sure how this ad would contribute to that, though.
The breastfeeding advocates are indeed concerned that seeing any parent, not just fathers, bottlefeeding in any context, not just breastfeeding commercials will normalise bottle feeding.
Their tip-toed around concern was also that Piri Weepu is (ahem) darker hued, and thus representative of the demographic most likely to abandon breastfeeding and have the socio-economic problems (money & water purity) mentioned above.
The breastfeeding advocates have done a big campaign featuring (ahem, darker hued) fathers supporting their partners in many ways to make breastfeeding easier for the mothers - this particular anti smoking ad was fairly similar and I can see their concern that the very small bottle feeding image could dilute their message.
The anti smoking ad still plays, minus that one second bottle feeding image and Piri is still portrayed as a engaged, loving and supportive father.
Or baby is adopted. Or mom is on medication that conta indicates breast feeding. Or baby won’t latch. Or mom has severe ppd. Or, or, or…
Frankly we spend far too much time being judgmental harpies on this issue, and not enough time supporting parents who are learning to parent.
They should substitute it with a picture of a baby trying to breast feed from daddy then.
Seriously though, this is offensive to any father. Let’s see if there is a petition going around… I’ll let my dad know, he’ll be furious. It’s been nearly 20 years since he last needed it, but he never stopped campaigning for baby changing rooms not being exclusive to the women’s toilets. Try telling him he shouldn’t be feeding his babies! Pfff