Similac Ad Pledges to Support Parents
This Similac Ad Highlights the Power of Negative Self-Talk, and Damn If It Didn't Stop Me Dead in My Tracks
As a parent, it's so easy to get lost in the stack of instructions; how we're supposed to speak to our babies, interact with our babies, nurture our babies. But somewhere along the way, we the parents get lost. We get caught up in measuring ourselves and our babies, and subconsciously taking note of how much more able-bodied, well-read, or developmentally astute some other child is, and it all manifests into a self-serving murky broth of blame, topped with negative self-talk and, when we're at our absolute lowest, outward-facing judgment.
I'm incredibly guilty of this. I don't judge other parents, but I judge myself constantly. If their younger kid is doing something mine isn't yet, I must be doing something wrong. And my words — my harsh and sometimes even cruel words — affect me the most.
And that's why this above Similac ad is so powerful. It highlights that, according to a new survey, 72 percent of parents say it is the responsibility of parents to stop parent-shaming, and seven out of 10 parents report feeling judged by other parents. But the ad has a simple message we can all follow: to support all parents. The ones you don't know, and the ones you know the best.
