parents

Cooking and cleaning makes me a better person.

That’s what advertisers would have us believe. Above is a cool clip looking at how cooking a meal for your family is meant to make them love you. Well, I’m a hopeless cook and we eat Thai takeaway A LOT. My family still appear to love me. Go figure.

My friend Jacqui Lunn wrote an excellent piece on a similar subject this last week:

"There is a woman I have been eager to meet for decades. From
what I have witnessed at a polite distance and imagined from within she
is always happy, perky, a deft hand at putting a plastic liner in a bin
with one flick of the wrist and is on top of stubborn stains on white
shirts and streaks on windows.

This woman, I have come to imagine, is the wife of the advertising
executives or the mother of the creative types who are responsible for
cleaning product advertisements on television. She must exist somewhere
– it is the only explanation I can come up with for why advertisements
for disinfectants, spray cleaners, stain removers, mould eradicators
and dust collectors still star a sparkling Stepford mum.

Inevitably, in these domestic scenes, the women have defied Mother
Nature and are 23-years-old with two teenage children, a perfect home
and an inoffensive smart casual wardrobe. A miracle. What 23-year-old
wears beige capris and a French navy and white striped top?"

Read the rest here….