Yesterday was a whirlwind and nearly eight hours of my time was spent advocating for something I believe so passionately in – safer products for our kids and transparency so I don’t have to carry cheat sheets in my purse and run home with written notes on a napkin about ingredients on a baby lotion. I’m fed up and want something better for my kids and the future generations. I could easily make cheap natural products at home but I’m too lazy. I want to go to a shelf and know that the product doesn’t have something dangerous to pour into my baby bath and darn it I don’t want a trace amount. It’s the combination of trace amounts that add up and aren’t we all tired of the ADD/ADHD, asthma, autism, and premature births and increase childhood cancer rates rising and everyone shrugging their shoulders wondering why. Can we not see the correlation?
I cannot go to every mommy playgroup, library time and to all of your homes and inform you of this or that (trust me I want to) but I can write on my blog and tell you what I learn. Parent to parent, mother-to-mother, human-to-human and straight from the heart. If you had spinach in your teeth, I’d tell you rather than let you look stupid. If you walked out of the bathroom with toilet paper on your shoe, I’d tell you. If you’re going to bath your child in something that has trace amounts of known carcinogens, I’m going to tell you. Want to leave the spinach in your teeth, walk out with toilet paper on your foot and continue the bath products – that is your call but don’t get mad at the messenger.
Lets be honest, I pissed off some mom bloggers a group of them that support each other, defend each other and get attacked or talked about often in both a positive and negative light. I get that but let me explain something very clearly, this happened because of the articles and reports I have been reading linking these Walmart Eleven Moms to the campaign with J&J such as this one in Advertising Age. This has turned out to be false (according to the one source I have) but was I supposed to contact all of them to check or email some of them? Probably and for that I am sorry and I think that this should be straightened out by the J&J and Walmart PR company not me. However, the moms weren’t mentioned as an “attack” but rather as a wondering on whether they would continue the campaign (that they aren’t part of) or use their blogging influence and power with the companies they consult and work with to do better and support our cause and back the Kid-Safe campaign.
Ahh and my video…we’ll I thought about not writing anything but no I’m festering. I’m annoyed that the video upsets people but the J&J campaign doesn’t. I’m annoyed that the moms would nit pick and not see a bigger message and to think I am mocking one person’s video is incorrect plain and simple. I’m really mad that my parenting was in question when the kids were joking, having fun, fully dressed, playing with pretend play items they use all the time and there was no danger or bad words used. We can let our children dress up at Halloween as evil bad creatures and collect candy from strangers but saying a “fun toxic bubble bath” is harming them and creeping you out? My son laughs at it and gets it. We aren’t pushing a product in a video, crossing unethical lines, nobody was harmed and it was a joke. When it comes to parenting and early childhood education I’m pretty sure I don’t cross too many lines to be question of and anyone who personally knows me well knows how those comments hurt and were out of line. Lets all remember that there are people behind the screen and they have feelings.
Okay so…there can be all this hoopla and negative comments and arguments on this or that and my video but what really matters is something bigger. The idea that we as consumers as moms and parents do not know who to trust or what is safe. We can’t just be more careful because we don’t all have chemistry degrees to read a label. I support the Kid Safe Chemical Act and I hope you do to. I don’t profess to say this is the answer and the end all be all but I think it is a start. I hope that the message yesterday from all the women that participated was very clear and that nothing was clouded by the video or any other misconception.
