Masochistic Mommy

In our increasingly desensitized society, advertisers have to push mainstream boundaries in order to achieve an impact; And whose buttons are better to push than parents? We’re plentiful, we spend lots of money, and we’re soppy sods. The following are genuine  advertisements. 1. Every child needs a family. UNICEF Croazia. 2. I wish we never had children. What you say during divorce lasts forever. SIRE: Elliot. 3. Children of parents who smoke, get to heaven earlier. Child Health Agency. 4. Smoking isn't just suicide. It's murder. CONAC Chilean Corporation Against Cancer. 5. You're the key. Fundacion Padre Hurtado. 6. Left: I will donate this child and help this child. Right (next page): I will donate later.  Medecins sans frontiers. 7. WWF: Consuming the Earth is consuming our future. 8. Above: My mom's going to kill me. Middle: My mom's going to kill me. Below: One condom... saves both lives.  Save The Children. 9. We don't have enough donors. National...

Today I was enjoying a very informative episode of Peppa Pig – the one where Peppa and her pals are learning to ski and their teacher, Madame Gazelle, is a world champion... Anyway, I was having a great time and then, during the commercials, this crock of shit appeared: Before I even had a chance to recoil in horror, a Mary Poppins’esc woman’s voice announced giddily: “All the princesses of the kingdom want to go to the ball! When the music starts, if you're lucky, the prince will choose you to dance with him around the ball room.” Cue a live-action sequence of three simpering girls grinning like cannabis-addicts in a greenhouse. Everything in the ad is pink with a tinge of pastel thrown in. Glittery effects and cartoon graphics overlay the clip of the live-action girls, who are shown hunched over a pathetically under-sized plastic boardgame. The voiceover continues: “Who will he choose?” “Destiny has decided you’re the lucky one!” One of the simpering girls opens her mouth in mock...

Welcome to the climax in a trilogy of posts examining the cultural distortion and disintegration of breastfeeding. The stories you are about to read provide a snapshot of the widespread cultural trend to denormalise, and thus warp, our view of lactation. You can find part one here and part two here . Enticing target Whitehouse, New Jersey, USA, 11 November 2005. According to Health Products Research, pediatricians are the second-biggest promotional target (primary-care doctors are first) of top US drug firms, including GlaxoSmithKline, Abbott Laboratories and Pfizer. The study found that antibiotics known as cephalosporins, analeptics to treat Attention Deficit Disorder, and inhaled nasal steroids were the top three drug types being marketed to pediatricians, followed by other allergy medications, asthma therapies and infant formula. According to the research conducted by polling more than 2300 pediatricians, drug-company representatives made 2.9 million sales calls to pediatricians’ ...

Oreo is known for hijacking the issue of infant feeding for marketing purposes (remember their breastfeeding ad ?) So now that Kate has dispelled the new heir to the British throne, Oreo thought they'd have another bash at the topic. However, this time the assumption is that the new prince will be bottle-fed (a bizarre assumption considering the royal family's track record of breastfeeding). Featuring a milk bottle and Oreo cookie atop a stately cushion, the timely campaign was tweeted out with the message 'Prepare the royal bottle service!' as soon as the news of the baby's birth broke. Then there is this 'subtle' affair from tea company Twinings: Notice it's a wee newborn-sized bottle! No shame. Perhaps they should have just gone the whole way and f illed the ruddy thing with tea!  It's a mere step from nutritionally-inferior powdered cow's milk. The influx of royal baby bottle ads is a stark reminder (if we ever needed another one) that our cu...

American babies consume an average of 600 jars of baby food by the time they are a year old ( Chasing Green 2011 ). Four out of five British babies rely on tinned and jarred products ( Rees 2007 ). Yet, the U.S. Government lists the vast majority of commercial baby food as “not creditable infant foods” on its WIC program ( 2011 ), and the U.K. Government maintains that, “Home cooking should always be encouraged over using commercial baby foods” ( Infant and Child Feeding Guidelines 2010 ). In a triumph of marketing over corporate responsibility, baby food companies, including the so-called ‘organic’ brands, sabotage the health of babies in their quest for profits - and parents facilitate it. Here’s how: THE COST: The global baby food market is worth more than £6 billion. Baby food manufacturers have found a goldmine in gullible parents. When parents buy commercial baby food they are paying, not only for all the ingredients, but also for the processing, packaging, storage, transportatio...