I don’t buy the laundry soap at our house, but if I did I wouldn’t buy Tide! Have you seen the ad showing a teen-age girl asking her mother if she (Mother) had worn her blouse? The mother denies it saying it’s not her style. But then a flash back shows Mom wearing the blouse and spilling a drink on it leaving a stain. When Daughter leaves the room Mom rushes to the laundry room and using Tide washes out the stain. In the last scene Daughter appears wearing the blouse and says she found it in her closet. Mom smiles that her deception works.
I can’t understand a prominent company showing a mother deceiving her daughter! Oh, it was only a “little white lie” Tide might say in defense of their ad; but I would say lying is small things leads to lying in larger things. I don’t think lying to one’s kid is ever justified. Nor can lying to anyone, young or old, ever be OK.
Think how effective the ad would have been if Mother had admitted she wore the blouse, had the daughter thrown a fit, (like most daughters would), and together they laundered the blouse. When the shirt came out of the washer stain free, the daughter could have apologized to Mom given her a hug, and ran out saying, “Wear my clothes anytime, just be sure you wash them and put them back in my closet.”
“Well,” Tide would say. “Everything doesn’t have to be a lesson in parenting.”
No, it doesn’t have to be, but the truth of parenting is that it is!