{"id":64998,"date":"2014-11-13T09:00:33","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T14:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=64998"},"modified":"2015-02-26T03:02:34","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T08:02:34","slug":"bounty-commercial-says-the-best-moms-let-mess-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/11\/13\/bounty-commercial-says-the-best-moms-let-mess-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"Bounty Commercial Says: The Best Moms Let Mess Happen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Way back in 1996, sociologist Sharon Hays <a href=\"http:\/\/yalepress.yale.edu\/book.asp?isbn=0300066821\" target=\"_blank\">coined the phrase<\/a> &#8220;the ideology of intensive motherhood.&#8221; She intended to draw attention to a new norm for mothering that involved, among other things, making children\u00a0the center of one&#8217;s life and\u00a0subordinating your own needs and wants to theirs.<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t help but think\u00a0of Hays and her beleaguered mothers every time I see this commercial:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/N5e0ZnrKEBY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When we&#8217;re having this much fun,&#8221; the voiceover says, &#8220;why quit?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And I think, &#8220;No, seriously, quit it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But the mother in the ad\u00a0doesn&#8217;t\u00a0tell the kid to quit it. She beams. And then\u00a0she gives the younger child his own glass of chocolate milk and\u00a0claps as he learns how to blow bubbles in it.<\/p>\n<p>Bounty glamorizes the clean-up work the mother has to do after her\u00a0child blows his chocolate milk all over the kitchen table and floor. As if letting a child make an unnecessary mess is the most unselfish sign of love. It&#8217;s\u00a0an excellent example of the\u00a0ideology of intensive motherhood: everyone knows that this\u00a0is going to be additional work for the mother, but the kids are having a good time and that&#8217;s what&#8217;s important.<\/p>\n<p><em>Cross-posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.psmag.com\/navigation\/health-and-behavior\/bounty-commercial-motherhood-best-moms-let-mess-happen-94655\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Way back in 1996, sociologist Sharon Hays coined the phrase &#8220;the ideology of intensive motherhood.&#8221; She intended to draw attention to a new norm for mothering that involved, among other things, making children\u00a0the center of one&#8217;s life and\u00a0subordinating your own needs and wants to theirs. I can&#8217;t help but think\u00a0of Hays and her beleaguered mothers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":65000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,2088,2100,272,293,76],"class_list":["post-64998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-marriagefamily","tag-gender-work","tag-marriagefamily","tag-social-construction","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/11\/211.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64998"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65985,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64998\/revisions\/65985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}