Thursday, September 24, 2009

Five Minutes a Day

I just ran across this ad (quote below), which is trying to sell stories for parents to read to to their kids. Except that it makes one huge assumption, which is that parents who don't have time to spent five minutes reading their kid a story they have in their home, will somehow be able to manufacture five minutes to spend with their kid after spending the time having found and printed the story...

Huh, that's funny. I thought we were supposed to have time to "do it all." I mean, just ignore the fact that there are a finite number of hours in the day and if you spend most of that time at work, you're spending most of your time away from your children...

I know that many mom's really have to work to support their children and that must be incredibly hard and they should have all the support that we can give them... what gets me is that many don't and if the way you spend your time tells what your priorities are... it doesn't paint a pretty picture about where are kids fall on our list of priorities.

The average working parent in America spends less than 5 minutes a day reading to their children.” So opens the presentation by StorySomething.com, which allows parents to customize children’s stories – with their son or daughter’s name incorporated into the tale – and print or email it to themselves. This product works with the iPhone so that busy parents can create customized bedtime stories for their children – complete with illustrations – so that they can be read any time, anywhere.


So that's my little rant for the day.

Added: Since my husband read this post and said it's unclear who I'm ranting at I'll add a little clarification. I don't think there's anything wrong with the product. I was merely inspired to write this post because the need for the product (parents unable to squeeze in time to read to their offspring) is, in my mind, directly linked to the feminist thought that we could all do everything and do it well (and let's face it we can't be in two places at the same time!).

The product reminds me of quite a few products on the market in which your kids name can be added to a story or song or video to make it more special. That's great if you want that sort of thing! What I have a problem with is parents who put work before their children.... especially when it's not necessary to put food in their mouths and keep a roof over their heads (and is instead because they want to live in a bigger house, drive a nicer car, go shopping more often...).

1 comment:

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