This ad was in one of my women's magazines. I was thumbing through the magazine over lunch, not really looking for anything other than recipes to clip and save.
It is an interesting ad, in my opinion, so I tore it out and saved it.
Why is the little girl running after the mother in what appears to be a parking lot? The posture of the mother is such that she isn't even looking towards the child.
I see this a lot, where parents are out doing "stuff" with their kids, especially eating, and there is no interaction taking place. No eye contact, no conversation, no nothing.
A prime real-life example of this was earlier this week, on Valentine's day. We went out to dinner with LD, and there was a family at a table near ours. The parents ate in silence, while the infant lay in a car seat, kicking the heck out of her mother, who didn't even let on that she was being kicked. The other child, a girl of about four, ate her food while watching a DVD on a portable unit they had set up in front of her. The adults ate in silence. When they were getting ready to leave, the older child took her coat, slammed it on the floor and jumped around on it. Still there was little interaction between parents and children, or even parent and parent.
Back to the McDonalds ad now.
The ad describes the food as though it is of premium quality. I think a lot of parents are really gullible if they think that the meal described in the ad is healthy. First of all, the child's meal is nothing but fat and sugar. Apples are already a sugar (although natural), and the caramel dipping sauce makes them nothing short of dessert. The nuggets, although white meat, are still just fried chicken.
Let me sidetrack yet again regarding chicken vs. all white meat chicken. I am not an advocate of eating the dregs of the chicken, or miscellaneous chicken parts ground up to look like something else, but frying up some "white meat" chicken is still fried chicken. Eating dark meat has tremendous advantages, including valuable nutients needed for joint health. And we shouldn't train an entire generation that dark meat is bad. We should train them that fat and grease are bad, and that anything is bad in excess.
I showed David the ad and asked him what he thought. His observations were entirely different than mine.
His first thought was, "Where is the father?" As a father, he makes time to attend LD's events whenever possible so I can understand his question. With it being the child's first ballet recital and the one of the mother's best days ever, you would think that dad may be in there somewhere.
Another observation of David's was that the food is shown served on plates, instead of the way we would normally receive fast food: served in cardboard and waxed paper.
Also, he noticed that mom seems to think the day revolves around her. Not the child. All great ballerinas wave to their mothers? She waved to me...
Some parents can come across as selfish asses sometimes. I guess often enough that McDonalds would feature them in an ad.
