The Parenting Community Will Hold Your Company Accountable if You Pull a Stunt Like Nestle Family

Here's a news flash for any up-and-coming marketing executive who is keen to use the parent-to-parent grapevine to market the widget of the week. Not only can the parent-to-parent grapevine wreak havoc on your company, if the campaign goes terribly wrong: your company can wreak lasting damage on that grapevine: damage for which the parenting community will hold your company accountable.

It's a lesson Nestle USA learned the hard way this week when it invited a group of parent bloggers to be part of the Nestle Family conference – a face-to-face think-tank designed to allow the company to pick bloggers' brains on everything from product development to social media. The invitees willingly accepted the invitation, apparently unaware that they were about to step into a major Twitstorm. ("I'm not being paid to do this. I use Nestle products and have for years, they are a part of my life," Nestle Family attendee MomSpark tweeted in response to a question on Twitter yesterday.)

Eager to capitalize on the popularity of the guest bloggers, Nestle created a Nestle Family website to promote itself and its brands. Nestle encouraged the guest bloggers to tweet about their participation in the conference, something that led to a mix of pro-conference tweets from the participants and anti-conference tweets from breastfeeding activists (under the #nestlefamily hashtag), who were trying to convince the guest bloggers to withdraw from the conference in protest of Nestle's non-compliance with the World Health Organization's International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes. Nestle did not making any attempts to speak out on behalf of its brand during this time. It allowed the guest bloggers to function as unpaid brand representatives, fending off attacks on the brand and themselves. Some of those attacks became highly personal and extremely nasty. ("Not going to forget the behavior of some people under the guise of discussion. You fool no one," tweeted Busy Mom – one of the guest bloggers – from the conference.)

Isabel Kallman, CEO of AlphaMom, and Allison Worthington of Allison Worthington Media, prominent mom bloggers and social media observers, tweeted back and forth about Nestle's lack of action as the conference day progressed. I contacted each of them for end-of-day interviews.

"It gets to the point of disaster if others have to be answering questions for you," said Kallman. "If [Nestle] had been in the conversation during the peak when the questioning was happening at least they could be there alongside others answering with their information or POV. But they were silent."

Nestle should have stepped up to the plate at the first signs of trouble. Worthington noted: "I watched the Nestle Family Tweets [Tuesday night] and expected engagement with the Twitter community to begin immediately."

It wasn't until the guest bloggers were being subjected to series of ongoing, highly personal attacks that Scott Remy, Senior Vice President of Nestle USA, decided to step in. He posted a comment to a discussion thread on PhDinParenting (See Comment 119), calling for a cease fire and asking that questions or concerns about the Nestle Family conference be directed to Nestle Family's brand new Twitter account rather than at the guest bloggers.

"Clearly there’s been a lot of conversation, and we recognize that you haven’t heard from us yet, Remy noted. "We ask that your readers do not attack our guests. We’ve been listening from the start. The social media space is new for us. Bringing bloggers to Nestle was a first step to extend conversations with our consumers in the social media space. We intend for this to be a first step not a last...."

Remy then re-iterated many of those same messages on the @NestleFamily account on Twitter

However, once members of the Twitter community started asking pointed questions about the company's infant formula marketing record to the @NestleFamily, the controversy re-erupted, with blogger @ilauredhel accusing Nestle of going from from obfuscation to outright lies.

It's hard to make sense of Nestle's game plan with regard to Nestle Family – if, in fact, they had one.

Nestle either underestimated the kind of reception that the conference (and its attendees) were likely to receive from breastfeeding activists; or it decided to operate on that old adage that any publicity is good publicity. It's just hard to imagine that any company would want to be known for generating this kind of bad feeling between parenting bloggers and towards its own brand.

Sure, they succeeded in reminded everyone that their company makes infant formula. But at the same time, they also hammered home even more powerfully the message that there's a lot of controversy associated with their brand. "Moms on Twitter now know what the WHO is and that they are there to provide unbiased research and advocacy on the benefits of breastmilk for babies," Kallman noted.

And as for the fallout in the online parenting community? Relationships were damaged as a result of a corporation's unwillingness to think through the consequences of sending parent bloggers into the frontlines to fight a losing battle in a PR war gone very wrong. Parents won't be forgetting that anytime soon either.

Related:

Respect the Mommy Blogger

Number One Rule of Mommy Blogging: Be Upfront With Your Reader

Mom 2.0: Meet the Mommy Blogger

Best Summer Ever: Day 42

August 11
Hold on to Summer

Don't let back-to-school shopping erase what's left of summer.

Unless your kids have outgrown all of their clothes this summer, they don't need an entirely new wardrobe for school.

It's nice to head back to school with a few new things, but if you make a list of what your kids actually need before you hit the stores, you'll be surprised of how little you actually need to buy.

Photo Credit: Ann Douglas, 2009.

Mom 2.0: She Has the Power: Moms, Marketers, and Ms. Magazine All Agree About That

Mom 2.0 has been the talk of the online world for much of the past week, with mothers and marketing and PR-types debating the power that Mom 2.0 now wields and how that power should or could be used.

The conversation is likely to continue this week, with another powerful post from blogger Mom-101 and with Ms. Magazine posting a shortened version of its Summer 2009 cover story - Cyberhood is Powerful by Kara Jesella - on its website as of today. The article, by Kara Jesella -- discusses the powerful ways mothers have connected online, for both personal and political reasons. (The extended play version of the story, which you'll find in the print edition, features a more in-depth look at the personal and political aspects of mommyblogging; and includes a useful resource sidebar featuring both mommyblogs and online motherhood resources.)  Note: Ms Magazine made the full-length version of the article available on its website on August 5th.

So why is mommyblogging getting coverage in Ms Magazine? Jesella wisely addresses that question early on in the print edition of the article:

"Not all the mommybloggers might self-define as feminists -- although certainly there is a feminist impulse behind the avowed goal of many of them to change cultural perceptions of motherhood -- but one might argue that what they're doing is a virtual version of feminist consciousness-raising: They're being exceedingly open about their experiences of mothering, and sharing those experiences in an (online) community with other mothers."

The mommyblogger conversation continues elsewhere as well. The Association for Research on Mothering's recently-published book Mothering and Blogging: The Radical Act of the MommyBlog, edited by May Friedman and Shana L. Calixte (Demeter Press, May 2009) picks up where Jesella's article leaves off, mining mommyblogging territory that isn't often written about: what do we make of blogs that document the lives of celebrity mothers and babies? which mothers end up getting marginalized in the momosphere (or mamasphere) -- and why? how does the presence of marketers affect conversations between mothers? and how are blogs evolving as more user-generated content and Web 2.0 technologies become available to moms (everything from Facebook to Twitter to Flickr to the huge number of social-networking communities aimed at moms and/or parents).

Related:

Excerpts from my essay "Mom 2.0: Meet the Mommyblogger," published in Mothering and Blogging: The Radical Act of the MommyBlog, edited by May Friedman and Shana L. Calixte (Demeter Press, May 2009).

Best Summer Ever: Day 30

July 30
Do Some Big-Picture Thinking

Start thinking about the kind of fall you'd like to have with your family.

Summer won't last forever, after all. (Sob.)

It's a great time of year to start musing about changes you might want to make to your family's usual school-year routine - changes that might help to make the work-school-family juggle a little less crazy.

You might want to consider...

....decluttering now to reduce the amount of stuff in your life. The more stuff you have, the more stress you have.

....setting a budget for back-to-school shopping so your kids will know how much they have to spend on necessities and anything-but-necessities before they step foot in a store. It's easier to have this conversation at home than in the middle of a mall.

...limiting the number of extracurricular activities each kid can sign up for so that time for outdoor play doesn't get squeezed out of the schedule altogether. Unstructured play is what childhood is all about.

...acknowledging the effect that over-scheduling has on you as a parent; and how that, in turn, affects the rest of the family. (If you're stressed out because there's no breathing space in your schedule, what are you going to have left for yourself and everyone else?)

...spending at least 30 minutes together as a family every day is important. It doesn't matter when or where you reconnect -- over dinner or a book. What matters is that it happens.

Related:

Bankrate.com: How to survive piano lessons and hockey practices

Best Summer Ever: Day 17

July 17
Bring on the Sun

Find the funkiest beach hat, flip-flops, or beach bag ever at the thrift shop of your choice. (Or shop a friend's closet, if she's willing to swap or share.)

It may not help to bring on the sun or warmer temperatures, but it's a fun way to dress up your summer wardrobe on a budget.

And exploring a thrift shop is always an adventure, even if you don't spend a dime.

Photo Credit: Ann Douglas, 2009.

 

How Perfect Do Reality TV Moms and Dads Have to Be?

It's not enough to be super mom or super dad anymore. You've got to be super parent and super couple, too -- at least on reality TV.

Face it. It’s not a fun time to be living in the Reality TV bubble.

As Jennifer Wilson-Speedy has noted, even Jon and Kate Gosselin -- the stars of Jon & Kate Plus 8 -- have fallen out of favor with the the ever-fickle viewing public (a public that continues to be rather unforgiving of parents who make mistakes).

Here’s the thing. In order to immerse themselves in the reality show experience, fans have to buy into the fantasy that the producers are selling them: in this case, that Jon and Kate are not only capable of surviving the pressures of raising eight very young children: their family and marriage are thriving.

Of course, there’s also the matter of the very unrealistic lifestyle being portrayed (at least as compared to Joe and Jane Average). Jon and Kate and their kids do fun and exciting things, like going on outings and taking trips. They don't stay home and deal with the hassles of getting the kids to daycare and doctors' appointments. That wouldn't make for very exciting TV. (Can you imagine an entire episode where the siblings are fighting in the waiting room at the dentists' office or wriggling in line at the bank? That would be bonafide Reality TV, but it wouldn't attract much of an audience (or, more critically, any sponsors). That's the irony of reality TV, isn't it: reality TV has become anything but.)

And so the viewing public appears to be falling out of love with Jon and Kate. It could be that shows about people who appear to be independently wealthy or whose lifestyle is being bankrolled by corporations simply doesn’t play as well in recessionary times.

There’s also the Octomom backlash to consider. Nadia Sulleman's pregnancy made people stop and ask questions about fertility drugs and family size in a way they really hadn't before. If we're starting to think about ways to walk more lightly on the planet, reality shows featuring families with huge families might not exactly be in tune with the times.

Could it be that the gossip magazines were just waiting for an excuse to pounce on one of reality TV’s once-favored families?

Here’s the sad truth.

Reality shows have a tendency to devour their participants. Did we honestly think things would be any different for Jon and Kate: that they'd be granted immunity forever?

If we did, perhaps we’re the ones who need a reality TV check.

Barbie vs. The Moms

So Barbie has been painting the GTA pink in celebration of her big 5-0. You had to know she'd mark this milestone birthday in style.

She may be an icon, but it's difficult to know whether she's best described, at this point in her life, as

1. a retro doll on a comeback tour
2. the great pink peril (an eco-feminist disaster)
3. a mega-brand doubling as a fashion industry stimulus package.

Maybe she's all that and more.

That got me wondering: has Barbie managed to make peace with the modern mom? Or is she still the iconic symbol of every feminist mom's worst nightmare come true. (Nancy White’s classic song “Daughters of Feminists” instantly comes to mind.)

Let's face it, Barbie didn’t do much to further her cause as a toy you'd want around your daughter, what with the math incident and the lingerie Barbie line. ¹ What were those people at Mattel thinking?

And yet, young girls have always been (and still are) drawn to Barbie.

Competitors with the most noble of intentions have found it almost impossible to steal away any of Barbie's customers, as I discovered for myself when I tried to do the feminist mom thing when my daughter was of Barbie age. I bought my daughter the Barbie alternative (a more realistically proportioned doll named Happy to Be Me that promised to enhance girls' self-esteem), only to have my daughter hand her back, pronto, complaining that Happy had a big butt.

I headed online to chat with some moms on Twitter (a great way to sample opinions on any topic, by the way). I wanted to know where things stood in the battle between Barbie and the Moms. Here's what I found out.

Barbies aren't as bad as Bratz. “As an aunt, I'd much rather my nieces play with Barbies than Bratz.” says @twhitneyshan. “I find Barbie a little more wholesome.” @cathyempey shares that view. “I am okay with my daughters playing with Barbies. [They are] way better than Bratz. I do not allow those dolls [Bratz] into our home.”

Your house, your Barbie rules. Depending on how you feel about Barbie, that may mean hanging a Barbie welcome sign on your front door; having a no way, no how policy where Barbie is concerned; or allowing a Barbie or two to inflitrate the premises (to stop Barbie from becoming forbidden fruit). “I'm not keen on my daughter (age 3 1/2) playing with Barbie,” says @traceyibrahim. “But I don't [prevent] her.

You don’t have to buy into the (cradle-to-grave) Barbie marketing hype. “The consumer part bothers me the most," says @radmama. Her solution? Make way for vintage and hand-me-down Barbies rather than buying new.

Remind yourself that Barbie is a plastic toy, not a cult leader. Our daughters have the power to make their own choices (with us providing them with guidance in becoming strong, happy, healthy girls who won't let an artificially-proportioned toy mess with their heads). And sometimes what they choose to do with Barbie makes Sid from Toy Story seem like a toy-manitarian. (“I only cut off my Barbie’s hair,” confesses @radmama. “My sister painted hers silver and wrapped her in wire.")

So don’t write off those “Daughters of Feminists” too soon, Moms and Dads. They may be marching to the beat of their own drummer -- and using their Barbies as drumsticks.

Note:
1. The official Barbie Collector site features some demure looking pictures of lingerie Barbie - with suitably demure copy (Barbie "looks darling in delicate pink. Intricate pale pink lace accents her heavenly bustier ensemble. Pink peek-a-boo peignoir floats over soft pink, feminine underpinnings. Sheer pink stockings and sling back high heels add flirtatious finishing touches" etc.) - and indicates that lingerie Barbie and other Barbies in the Fashion Model Collection are no longer available.
     A commentator at the Blog Sisters blog reacted to the parental outcry at the launch of lingerie Barbie in November 2002 as follows: "I've long been a big UN-fan of Barbie in general, but this new model doesn't bother me so much: she's kind of just a blatant example of what, to me, Barbie is about anyway. The angry dad on the news was upset about the sexual suggestiveness of the toy, but apparently has no problem letting his daughter play with lots of blonde, unrealistically shaped dolls that promote sexism in a more insidious way."

Related:

Body Talk: The Straight Facts on Fitness, Nutrition, and Feeling Great About Yourself: A self-esteem book for preteens and teens that I wrote with my daughter, Julie. (Maple Tree Press, 2006).

* * *

I'm hoping you'll continue the conversation with me, adding your two cents in the comments section below, taking the discussion to your own blog, and/or catching up with me via Twitter (@anndouglas).   >> This may be my space, but it's our conversation. <<

Dummy Mummies, Baby Crazies, and Reasons Not to Have Children: It’s Open Season on Mom....Again

The Guardian slams all things parental (and blames all things maternal) in its weekend magazine

A British parent looking for a relaxing read over a cup of tea this past Sunday morning was in for a bit of a jolt. What was being served up in the Life & Style section of The Guardian was a triple-header of parental condemnation, with the bulk of the blame being pinned on mom.

ONE.
In The dummy mummy decade: boring, selfish smug: how a generation of women because obsessed with motherhood, Rachel Cooke makes the case that the child-obsessed “baby crazies” (a.k.a. the dummy mummies) have  “reverted, 50s-style, to identifying themselves primarily, vociferously, and sometimes exclusively, as mothers.” She argues that a “loony excess of maternal feeling” is the result of women having their babies later in life. “[When they have children. they] feel grateful, a gratefulness that gives them the zeal of the convert. And it is this zeal, I am assuming, that prevents boredom from setting in as they ponder the pros and cons of the Bugaboo Bee.”

TWO.
In Why I don’t want children, Polly Vernon argues that parenthood turns adults -- particularly women -- into self-absorbed, selfish bores (much the same point Cooke makes in her piece, which makes you wonder why The Guardian saw the need to run two we-hate-mothers diatribes on the same day). Anyway, here's Vernon:

“I really don't like what parenthood does to grown-ups....Spare me the one-track conversations. Spare me the self-righteousness, the sense of entitlement (you, with the toddler-on-wheels: astonishing news just in! You don't have pavement priority over the rest of the world!). Spare me the pretensions of martyrdom and selflessness....And please spare me the pitying glances (I promise I don't want what you have. Honestly, I find it mind-boggling that you don't want what I have. Are you quite sure you're not poleaxed with jealousy?). While I always offer pregnant women my seat on the Tube, on my darkest days I also find myself thinking: let's get something straight here. Your condition is self-inflicted, you made the choice to get knocked up, and you presumably knew it'd leave you incapacitated in this way. I don't know if you deserve my seat any more than you would if you were incapacitated by a banging hangover, say, or a great deal of shopping.”

THREE.
And in 20 other reasons not to have a baby, John Hind offers a catch-all list of reasons for abstaining from parenthood, with those reasons ranging from the gynecological (“96% of women say they are "less pleased" with their vaginas a year after giving birth than before”) to the environmental (“British parents wishing to offset the C02 emissions resulting from bringing one child into the world would need to plant 1,073 trees”) to the financial (“The Optimum Population Forum judges the price of a condom to have had a nine million per cent "return on investment" when set against the cost to the planet of having a child.”) Go ahead and check out the other 17 reasons, if you dare.

Here’s a footnote which you may find interesting if, like me, you are interested in the way that the media influences the ideas we form about parenting. The Guardian’s down-with-parenthood triple-header ran just a few days after columnist Kira Cochrane accused the British press of pinning the blame for all of societies ills on moms. (She was referring to a barrage of media coverage in response to an important UK report about childhood: A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age. You can read The Star’s coverage of that same report here at ParentCentral.ca.) Here's what Cochrane had to say:

“A quick scan of the newspapers would have led to the assumption that the report is about one thing alone: how armies of working women are laying waste to family life.

"Working women 'fuel family splits'" said the Daily Telegraph's front page headline.

"Kids 'damaged' by mums who work" blared the Sun.

"Mum's cash 'leading to split home'" frothed the Mirror.

"Children 'suffering from lack of two-parent family'" pronounced the Mail.

“The people who really seem to be implying that women should get back to the kitchen are the newspapers themselves.”

It's not unusual for societies to adopt increasingly conservative attitudes when things go from bad to worse -- and the UK is being particularly hard-hit by the current economic hard times. But declaring it open season on mothers (at least via the newspaper headline or Sunday feature) isn't the way to deal with the need for change.

That's an important point to bear in mind, just in case the next British import happens to be a wave of just-blame-mom mania. We've got enough of our own bizarro attitudes about motherhood to sort through here in North America.

Update:

I just noticed tonight (Thurs. Feb. 12th) that Her Bad Mother -- a popular Toronto-area blogger -- has written a passionate response to Rachel Cooke's piece (mentioned above). The debate is raging in the comments section over Her Bad Mother's blog. Was Cooke serious when she put forth such outrageous arguments? Should women ever question other women's choices? Those are just a few of the issues that are being debated over at Her Bad Mother.

DIY Placenta Pinatas and More. Much More.

It's always fascinating to watch the merging of concepts and brands that occurs in the online world.

iTunes meets education and you get iTunes University (one of the most addictive places to delve for podcasts, btw, if you haven't already found it).

The handmade crafting world meets the ecommerce mall and you end up with Etsy.com.

Well, today, I spotted one of these online cross-pollinations that kind of blew me away -- and, trust me, I'm not easily blown away at this point.

Combine funky DIY projects with reproductive health and you get Instructables.com's project area focusing on sex, pregnancy, birth, and beyond.

Here are some links to prove to you that I am not making this up -- instructions for real projects that you can tackle that tie into the above-mentioned theme. (You'll have to search for the extra-racy ones yourself. Just use your imagination and let the search box at Instructables.com see what it can dig up on your behalf.)

A placenta-shaped pinãta -- the placenãta: "Whether tossed out with the trash, buried in the backyard, or mixed into your favorite soup recipe, the placenta is an organ worth celebrating over. The following tutorial outlines how to combine the ultimate party favor, the pinãta, with the ultimate afterbirth."

A crocheted childbirth education doll with accompanying placenta. (Anyone noticing a trend?) Note: The doll is pretty fascinating, but the introduction isn't exactly pro-birth (e.g., "This is Ida Faye. She is a midwife, educator and mother. She loves to educate little ones about the reality of birth. Yes, she agrees it is a beautiful miracle, but it is also messy and weird and sometimes scary.") Uh huh.

A knitted uterus prop used for a scene in The Vagina Monologues. ("This skit is written by a woman whose mother taught childbirth classes and used a knitted uterus. My friend wanted a uterus as a visual and asked for my help.")

A boutique-style diaper cake (as opposed to a non-boutique style diaper cake).

It's cool to see what an online meeting of minds and a merging of concepts can create. I'm not necessarily planning to tackle any of these craft projects myself (I'm more of a paper and scissors type, for starters), but I'm very interested in watching this particular pregnancy and parenting | diy mashup evolve throughout 2009. Fascinating stuff.

Bulletin Board

I thought I'd introduce a new feature to the blog so that I can post some of those items I come across that don't quite warrant an entire blog post in-and-of themselves, but that are too intriguing to keep to myself. I'm calling this new feature Bulletin Board for obvious reasons. These are the types of items you might tear out and stick on your bulletin board if you came across them in real life.

Prevention of Youth Crime Can Start During Pregnancy
Researchers Julie Brousseau and Mireille Jetté of Prevention are attempting to deal with some of the root causes of youth crime by identifying risk factors that tend to carry over from generation to generation and taking steps to try to break the cycle of inter-generational problems, starting when a mother first becomes pregnant.

Oh, Do You Know the Muffin Gran?
Here's proof positive that you can pass down your entrepreneurial vision to your kids and your grandkids. The granddaughter of one of the co-authors of the 1980's cookbook megahit Muffin Mania mega has released a revised second edition of her grandmother's cookbook.

Autism Re-Defined
Two parents from Nova Scotia have written a tell-it-like-it-is account of how their lives play out day-to-day as they cope with the joys and challenges of their sons' autism. "Autism means ... having to absorb glaring and judgmental stares if there is a meltdown at the grocery store, or the mall, or the bus, or the sidewalk. And rather than people offering a helping hand, you hear... 'Why don’t you control your kid.' 'Why’s that boy screaming mommy?' 'What a bad parent.' It means making sure they are wearing a red T-shirt with the words Autism Summer Camp on the back and the front when we do go out, to try and avoid the condemnation." - From Life on Mars by Charlene and David Croft (an excerpt from their forthcoming book Little Rain Men).

Affluenza
Just in time for holiday shopping season -- a link to this PBS documentary about the root causes of overspending and what they mean for our society and the future of the planet. The fabulous retro footage of car ads, dream kitchens, and bored/unhappy shoppers make Affluenza a must watch before you hit the malls. (More.)  If the film leaves you looking for solutions, you may want to check out the viewers' guide which was created to accompany the sequel, Escape from Affluenza.