This ‘World’s Toughest Job’ Ad Thinks All Moms Are Martyrs And Disabled Moms Don’t Exist
I was all set to be deeply touched and moved by this ad created by Mullen for American Greetings where they set up a job listing online for a “director of operations” position at a company called Rehtom Inc. Now, I may be some super-genuis but does anyone else see the name of the company and immediately realize what it spells backwards? DUH. Anyway, they set up the job listing with requirements like working from 135 to unlimited hours per week, no vacations, no time to sleep and no salary. Only 24 people actually inquired about the job, and they set up interviews via webcam.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB3xM93rXbY ]
Moms do a lot. We work very hard. A lot of the time our work goes unappreciated. But come on! I hate those sort of treacly GOTCHA advertising especially around Mother’s Day because it’s just so manipulative and saccharine. There are so many falsehoods in this fake job description:
First category is mobility, the job requires that you work standing up, most or all of the time. SERIOUSLY? Here’s a fun fact advertising agency people, there are roughly eight million families in the US that include one parent with a disability, many of those parents who use wheelchairs and have no use of their legs. Guess what? They parent just fine without staying up for most of the day. That’s such ableist bullshit right there, and I’m sort of shocked that a company like American Greetings would gloss over this little fact.
If you had a life, we’d ask you to give that life up.
Who does this ad apply to? I think this ad was created for Facebook peoples, you know, the ones who post those Mommy Martyr memes on their Facebook walls all about how hard being a mom is and how they get no pay and no vacation time and wah wah wah.
This ad makes being a mom sound like The World’s Toughest Job and ya know, it isn’t. Being a mom isn’t a TOUGH JOB. Digging ditches and hauling pianos and being a brain surgeon and volunteering in third world countries is a TOUGH JOB. Being a mom can be exhausting and lonely and heartbreaking and sleep-depriving but it’s just not as horrible as this ad makes it out to be. Yes, I spent many years devoted to my children and I will spend many more, but it’s just not that big of a deal. Sometimes we stay up with a crying baby or don’t get to eat our dinner hot or our hair goes unwashed for a few days but big freaking deal. These problems are all so basic and unimportant. You know what the tough jobs of parenting are? Dealing with sickness and death. Everything else is pretty much just life.
I appreciate what my mom did for me and all the sacrifices she made. I hope one day my kids feel the same way about me. But ads like these makes it seem like all moms are secretly wringing our hands and feeling all resentful because no one knows how hard we work and what we have given up and how being a mom has been this relentless stream of an amazingly stressful and soul-pouching job and WOE IS MOM. Is there some of that? A bit. But ask any mom, and she will tell you it’s fine, and it’s worth it, and a lot of days are okay, and end up with sweet kids and their goodnight kiss and some excellent TV viewing and a glass of wine. That’s pretty amazing in the grand scheme of things.
(Image: You Tube)
