Last night at about this time someone said, “hey what do you think of this?”
This was a transcription of Motrin’s new online advertisement, an animation I believe. My first response was fury.
Then LaSara FireFox said, what now?
And #MotrinMoms was born.
There has been a complete and utter firestorm about this with writeups at Mashable and Mom-101. Twitter is ablaze and now I’m bracing for my very own backlash, because some people think we’re silly.
I assure you, it’s fine to call me silly, be sure that you’ve got the name spelled right though, it’s Gottlieb. I asked mothers to share their stories about why generic is better in a recession, Katja jumped on board and made an amazing video that’s gone viral, Shankman went on Fox and I went to a party.
Yep, I went to party to celebrate the launch of this fantastic blog you’re reading now. General Motors had all the mommies carpool in swanky new Chevy Traverse’s and Amy Andersen gave us a show we won’t soon forget.
I am exquisitely aware that the only way my voice is heard, is when you repeat my words. I try to play nice and use my inside voice, and I need y’all to know that my “baby” is seven. I’m not prickly because they picked on me. I’m prickly because they picked on new mommies. I’m prickly because calling us bad mothers will never be funny.
I am the only one who can criticize my parenting, and I tend to do it in retrospect. I am not a feminist and I am not an activist. I’m a Mommy with a keyboard and I remember how fragile I felt that first year. So make the soccer mom joke if you must, feel free to mock my station wagon and my sensible shoes, joke about motherhood during the school years, it can be very funny.
But please, don’t call me a bad mother. Don’t call anyone a bad mother and, please, never ever joke about our babies.
Because we love our babies more than life itself and I will never apologize for defending motherhood.
Ever.