A few days ago, Honey Maid, the maker of a wide variety of well-known graham cracker products including the honey-flavored Teddy Grahams I once served my own children, unleashed the second installment in its “This is Wholesome” campaign.[1] The campaign, which is accompanied by two videos, celebrates stepfamilies, and was scheduled to coincide with National Stepfamily Day, September 16. Not only do these ads appear discriminatory toward still-married spouses and their intact families, they recklessly disregard the devastating consequences of divorce on millions of children.
The first video, a two-minute already-debuted documentary-style spot, is accompanied by the hashtag “NotBroken.” The second spot, a 30-second clip, aired nationally on September 15.
The longer ad depicts a young boy and two stepfamilies who talk on-screen as soothing music plays in the background. The young boy mentions the difficulties of explaining his “blended” family to others when he perceives no meaningful differences between his new extended family and other families. As an example, he points to the differing hair colors of his two dads. And the boy’s stepmother says she’ll never forget the first time her stepson called her “mom.” She notes, too, that she saves the “fun” things for her weekends with him. But “primary” and “custodial” parents know that trick, the one where the non-custodial parents and stepparents get to do the “fun” stuff, and the primary or custodial parents get to be the disciplinarians and take care of the day-to-day drudgery. Read more here at The Huffington Post.
