Arts Culture
Real Moms Would Do Just Fine
Everyday Adventures
By Mary Fran Bontempo, For The Bulletin
Maybe you’ve seen the commercials: A scruffy looking young man enters the screen carrying a backpack. Accompanied by sweet-sounding violins, he arrives on a front porch, greeted by a middle-aged woman wearing an apron, who embraces him tightly. It’s his mother, apparently, who proceeds to tuck the fellow in for a nap. (The guy’s around 22. It’s creepy.) A moment later, sonny sits at a dining table as mom loads his plate with, heaven forbid, a healthy heap of greens, whereupon he looks at her disgustedly, tosses his napkin on the table and bolts, leaving the poor woman staring after him as the screen door closes in her face.
Cut to scene two, where Junior arrives at another home, once again embraced by a mother who proceeds to fatten the boy up with some homemade goodies. All is well until mommy, noticing a smudge on sonny’s face, licks her thumb and attempts to wipe away the crumbs. Once again, momma’s little man is disgusted, throws her delicious munchies on a plate and takes off, leaving mother number two staring after him, equally as forlorn as mother number one.
The commercial ends with our hero approaching a third mother (who looks frighteningly like Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie) as she stands in a soccer goal, playing goalie for the overgrown tyke. She lets the arrested adolescent score and it looks as though we have a winner, folks! Junior has chosen the mommy he likes best.
Welcome to Kleenex Tissues’ wacky new ad campaign, during which viewers are exhorted to “Get Mommed” by visiting the website www.GetMommed .com. Once there, a bevy of possible mom candidates takes up position on the screen, each exhorting her virtues when you scroll your mouse over a mother’s visage and click.
We have Southern belle mom, multi-cultural mom, nature mom, Junior League mom, best friend mom, crafty, down-home mom and finally, no-nonsense mom, all in a variety of shapes, sizes, skin tones and ethnicities. Each brings her own individual stamp to the role, but all extol the benefits of using Kleenex Tissues during cold and flu season.
Once you “choose” your mom, you can set up the mother’s “To Do” list, selecting items such as “Wake me up” “Boost my confidence” or “Tell me a bedtime story.” (Really? A bedtime story?)
Your “mom” can remind you of things, including friends’ birthdays and she’ll offer advice on any number of matters. If you’d really like to be in cahoots with your new mom, you can have her “rescue” you by calling your cell phone when you’d like to get away from someone or something. By filling in the appropriate boxes, you can have your mom call, email or text you with her loving meddling at any time of your choosing. Quite a bit of work, this tailor-made mother thing.
So here’s a thought: Instead of going through all of the trouble of picking and choosing a mom from an internet website, setting up meddling mom moments and having your virtual mother phone and text you ad nauseam, how about this…LISTEN TO YOUR OWN MOTHER!
I’ll bet your very own, flesh and blood mother can give you all of the advice you need and she’s right there. I’m also going to assume that she’ll be more than happy to dispense that advice, with no effort involved on your behalf at all.
No, we’re not perfect, but we’re there for you. We cook for you, we clean for you, we wake you up, we’ve spent your entire life telling you how wonderful you are. We also worry about you, and if occasionally, we try to wipe a smudge off of your face with some spit and a thumb, well, deal with it. That’s what we do. We’re moms, and we’re free of charge, no advertisements attached.
As for the folks at Kleenex who are trying to replace us? I’ll be dispensing tissues this flu season, but they’ll be the generic brand, not the fancy Kleenex kind. A good generic tissue, like a regular, ordinary mom, gets the job done just as well, without the hype or the Dustin Hoffman wig.
Mary Fran Bontempo is the author of Everyday Adventures or, As My Husband Says, “Lies, Lies and More Lies”.
Cut to scene two, where Junior arrives at another home, once again embraced by a mother who proceeds to fatten the boy up with some homemade goodies. All is well until mommy, noticing a smudge on sonny’s face, licks her thumb and attempts to wipe away the crumbs. Once again, momma’s little man is disgusted, throws her delicious munchies on a plate and takes off, leaving mother number two staring after him, equally as forlorn as mother number one.
The commercial ends with our hero approaching a third mother (who looks frighteningly like Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie) as she stands in a soccer goal, playing goalie for the overgrown tyke. She lets the arrested adolescent score and it looks as though we have a winner, folks! Junior has chosen the mommy he likes best.
Welcome to Kleenex Tissues’ wacky new ad campaign, during which viewers are exhorted to “Get Mommed” by visiting the website www.GetMommed .com. Once there, a bevy of possible mom candidates takes up position on the screen, each exhorting her virtues when you scroll your mouse over a mother’s visage and click.
We have Southern belle mom, multi-cultural mom, nature mom, Junior League mom, best friend mom, crafty, down-home mom and finally, no-nonsense mom, all in a variety of shapes, sizes, skin tones and ethnicities. Each brings her own individual stamp to the role, but all extol the benefits of using Kleenex Tissues during cold and flu season.
Once you “choose” your mom, you can set up the mother’s “To Do” list, selecting items such as “Wake me up” “Boost my confidence” or “Tell me a bedtime story.” (Really? A bedtime story?)
Your “mom” can remind you of things, including friends’ birthdays and she’ll offer advice on any number of matters. If you’d really like to be in cahoots with your new mom, you can have her “rescue” you by calling your cell phone when you’d like to get away from someone or something. By filling in the appropriate boxes, you can have your mom call, email or text you with her loving meddling at any time of your choosing. Quite a bit of work, this tailor-made mother thing.
So here’s a thought: Instead of going through all of the trouble of picking and choosing a mom from an internet website, setting up meddling mom moments and having your virtual mother phone and text you ad nauseam, how about this…LISTEN TO YOUR OWN MOTHER!
I’ll bet your very own, flesh and blood mother can give you all of the advice you need and she’s right there. I’m also going to assume that she’ll be more than happy to dispense that advice, with no effort involved on your behalf at all.
No, we’re not perfect, but we’re there for you. We cook for you, we clean for you, we wake you up, we’ve spent your entire life telling you how wonderful you are. We also worry about you, and if occasionally, we try to wipe a smudge off of your face with some spit and a thumb, well, deal with it. That’s what we do. We’re moms, and we’re free of charge, no advertisements attached.
As for the folks at Kleenex who are trying to replace us? I’ll be dispensing tissues this flu season, but they’ll be the generic brand, not the fancy Kleenex kind. A good generic tissue, like a regular, ordinary mom, gets the job done just as well, without the hype or the Dustin Hoffman wig.
Mary Fran Bontempo is the author of Everyday Adventures or, As My Husband Says, “Lies, Lies and More Lies”.
Copyright © 2010 - The Bulletin