lundi 4 avril 2016
The "Touching" Tribute to Parents That's Actually Sexist and Stereotypical
Call me overly sensitive, but roughly 0.5 seconds into this short, animated Facebook video from Bright Side, I knew it was going to be sexist, stereotypical, and completely unnecessary. And it was.
The video, titled "How Kids See Mom and Dad," illustrated a child at every stage of life with a split screen of what this kid thinks of his mom (on the left) and dad (on the right) at any given age.
The first few - like the newborn thinking Mom is "warm and soft" while the dad caused physical pain with an "ouch! He's itchy!" - I could get past, mostly because I'm aware that infants don't really have much awareness of who's who in this world. But once that animated boy turned 3 years old, my ability to dismiss gross generalizations was vanquished.
Because, apparently to Bright Side, kids from 3 to 6 years of age see moms as the women who "won't let me throw sand" while dads are those cool guys who "let me play in puddles."
It gets worse.
In the five-year span from ages 7 to 12, moms "won't give me the smartphone," but dads "gave me a tablet." Not only are moms cruel disciplinarians while dads are adoration-seeking pushovers, but apparently all parents of either gender are good for is providing their offspring with technological devices.
In a plot twist, by age 13, kids no longer see their parents as separate beings (a minor victory against gender stereotyping) and instead lump them together as equally terrible. "They don't understand me at all!" is how kids see their parents until they reach adulthood.
The rest of the video is filled with sappy realizations kids make as they get older and have kids themselves. That is, save for the period of time when those new children need babysitters, at which point Grandma "stays with the kids all weekend" while Grandpa is just around to "tell funny stories."
I get that this video is meant to make us parents feel all warm and fuzzy - and perhaps also a bit nostalgic about our own upbringing, if not all-out guilt-ridden for how we've treated our aging parents. It's a heavy-handed message, for certain, but if it was meant to only bring sunshine and happiness to those who viewed it, would it have been that hard to figure out a way to do that without alienating those moms and dads (or moms and moms, or dads and dads, or single moms and single dads) it's geared toward?
My husband and I work tirelessly to create an environment where my child sees me not as a fuddy-duddy who won't allow for horseplay and him not as a clown only there for amusement. If anything, why can't we both be fuddy-duddies and both be clowns when the need for each arises?
So, call me sensitive, touchy, an aforementioned fuddy-duddy . . . whatever you like. My goal in being that person who's no fun, who can't take a joke, and who picks apart an unassuming video about love and family is that the subtle, almost subliminal notes of sexism seen in the media and shared on Facebook are perhaps worse and far more pervasive than those overt, blatantly offensive exclamations of it. They sneak by, as this one does, guised in cheery cartoons and uplifting messages, and do the most damage.
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