Sheeez! Someone, please find me a NOT busy mum! Seriously! Does she exist? (without mega-celeb status and 4 full-time nannies?). From one “busy mum” to the many others who are just as busy but NOT mums, I am SO OVER every TV commercial being prefaced with this martyr-ish, holier-than-thou guilt-trip! Aren’t you?
What makes “us mums” think we’ve got the monopoly on “busy-ness”? Are we unique just because we’ve pushed out that slippery, squirming, watermelon from between our legs one fateful day a few months or years back? Are we to be considered a breed of our own or extra-special compared to the millions of other just-as-busy nulligravida women? I think not! (Note: Medically, a woman who has never been pregnant is referred to as a “nulligravida”).
A common scientific term for the state of pregnancy is GRAVID. A pregnant female is sometimes called a GRAVIDA. (Noice!) Neither word is used in common speech (thankfully, ‘cos it all sounds a bit morbid to me!) and similarly, the term “parity” (abbrev. “para”) is used for the number of previously “successful” live births. No wonder we feel so down on ourselves when we don’t “successfully” reproduce as the text books tell us we should! And who could blame any woman who’s desperately trying to fall pregnant and forced to watch yet another stupid “mother-guilt” ad for wanting to ram the nearest vase (or TV Producer) into her TV screen?! You know, those ads prefaced by that ridiculous statement “As a busy mum I know my family needs….”
I don’t need to be a “busy mum” (or a celebrity) to know whether I like/want to use a certain product to clean my house or feed my face! Why don’t those marketing gurus get that? And why can’t they be a little more sensitive to the feelings of the countless women who would dearly love to join the ranks of those “busy mums” but thus far have not been “successful”! Arrrgh! Kill me. No, kill the ads. Right now!
SUCH PRESSURE everywhere!
The media is not and should not be considered our life’s checklist/manual/bible. If you’re not a mum you still can be “busy”. And if you are a mum and you don’t choose to buy that latest appliance, tissues, muesli-bar, or disinfectant, you must not and should not feel guilty! It does not make you a bad mum! Your family will survive if they are not “anti-bac’d” to within an inch of their underwear! And if they are, then you are probably doing their immune systems a great disservice anyway!
What do you think? Are there celebrity/mum ads on telly that drive you mad? Are you over guilt-trip advertising? Or are you just “too busy” to care – mum or no mum!? I’d love to hear your comments…
I don’t pay attention to ads, except the funny ones. I love those ETrade ads with the baby who talks like a stock trader.
I can pitch a tirade about insurance company ads. To me, there is nothing funny about a car accident or the cost of insurance.
As far as busy mums, I wouldn’t know. For me, everyday’s a vacation. For the Little Woman, she’d probably say she was my nulligravida sex slave. She can get pretty busy at times.
But she comes home to a stud muffin in an apron, spooning up restaurant grade dishes and hands her a glass of wine the minute she walks through the door and she pretty much never cleans the house or empties the dishwasher. But, you’d have to ask her for yourself.
I learned long ago, sex slaves don’t clean toilets. They just don’t. It’s like a law.