So I’ve woken up at 4:30 am to write this week’s column. Clearly, I don’t follow my own advice of ‘Don’t put off till tomorrow, what you can do today’ which I sanctimoniously spout at my boys when they are running late with life. It’s also one day after spending eight hours at the passport office trying to renew my son’s passport. That’s right. Eight hours.
EIGHT. At one point, I’d convinced myself that he didn’t even need a passport, and should we ever have to travel overseas we would just have to leave him behind with a fully stocked fridge and strict instructions to wash behind his ears.
So forgive me if a certain crankiness seeps as I write about a new advert that annoys me on so many levels. Sleep deprived + still annoyed. #StandByToughMoms. As hashtags go, I’d say this is a good one, especially in a culture of permissive parenting, where many seem almost afraid of their children. I agree: we should stand by tough parents, as long as their idea of toughness doesn’t endanger a child. We shouldn’t just sit there and silently judge, openly insult, or make side eyes at a parent who is trying to reprimand a child who has done something stupid. Yet, 95% of the people in the ad film I’m talking about do just this.
I’m sure the advertising agency had plenty of research, data and other good reasons to depict this idea as they did. Perhaps the rage one feels when watching the film is akin to the emotion felt when one is being attacked by mosquitoes?
From the overbearing mother-in-law to the father of said child who sits there and insults his wife and her family. No one stands up through most of the film till the bearded patriarch of the family chides his clan for not supporting the mother. He should have added: when you don’t step in when children are badly behaved they grow up to be giant a**hats like my son.
You know, I’m sure this situation or a version of it is common in many homes. I’m not saying this was an inaccurate depiction. I’m saying that if you have the money to make a three-minute film and a marketing budget to promote it, why not show how things should be? You might not be able to use the hashtag you came up with, but there may be a better one lurking in there.
As a parent, who has chastised, yelled and lost it at her children, both in public and private I have this to say: My child, my choices.
A few years ago I had a nuclear level show down with my then two-year-old son because he wouldn’t share his water bottle with a cousin. Not one of my best moments looking back.
My family who was witness to the mushroom cloud that formed over my head, took a quiet step back, removed all children from the nuclear fall-out zone and left me alone to cool off. They asked me the next day if everything was alright in my life and if I wanted to talk about anything. That’s how you #StandbyTough-deranged-exhausted-trying-to-get-their-s***-together-moms. End of hashtag.
Menaka Raman
Twitter@menakaraman
The writer’s philosophy is: if there’s no blood, don’t call me