Delivering what? When Kids Get Too Much Info On The Birds And Bees

Posted: April 8, 2014

I was shaken out of my totally zoned out state a couple of weeks back while I was vegetating in front of a cartoon channel only to please my son, and a brand new ad for 5 star popped up. Why?

It showed a lady popping out a baby and my eyes literally popped out! Did they really show a baby being born for a 5 star ad? Another product also sports a similar ad.

This one that assaulted my sensibilities is for MTS, where a baby is born ready to use the Internet. He crawls and then walks out while the medical staff and his mother with her legs in the stirrups watches amazed. Yes, I was amazed at the totally senseless ad and the uncaring attitude of the product promoters and what effect it would have on the psyche of little children glued to their television sets.

Even worse, did they show such ads on a cartoon/children’s channel?! Is it just me or are the manufactures, advertisers and channel programmers all going crazy? Why has the ad not been banned?

I am not an overly protective mother and advocate the importance of hands-on learning by a child. Yet, this ad left me outraged and wanting to shut the channel and erase the memory from my child. Some might say I am over reacting and children need to know the facts about the ‘birds and bees’, etc, etc. But do we really need to expose 5 year olds to the facts of childbirth? They do know that the ‘baby come from mummy’s tummy’ but do we have to subject them to those visuals? Do they really need to know the graphic details?

I checked the ads on Google and one was tagged as ‘#conditionserioushai’. True the condition is really serious if we are reduced to such unimaginative visuals and crass story-lines for selling a brand loved through the years.

My ‘mother- monitor’ was bleeping on loudspeaker mode; what about yours?

Pic credit: Devon (Used under a CC license)