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Formula For Boycott, Gay Parenting, and Mom Bloggers For Sale

Every Friday night, when I don’t have anything better to do, I try to read some blogs and generally get caught up with my corner of the blogosphere.  (You know, where parenting intersects with Toronto.)  Sometimes I even indulge in a wee alcoholic beverage or two while I do this.  Why not take this relaxing past-time, I thought, and somehow turn it into work? I know!  I’ll write a re-cap blog based on my reading and that’ll sell like hotcakes on the interwebs. Or at least I’ll start blogging more regularly and about Important Things that everybody else is on about. So, unless I find something better to do, give it up for:

THIS WEEK IN THE MOMOSPHERE

  • Okay, so this first one is totally from last week, but whatever. Old Navy sells infant onesies with “Formula Powered” printed on them and the internet goes crazy. The lactivists are aghast at the company’s blatant disregard for the health and well-being of babies everywhere and you can practically hear them chanting, “Boycott! Boycott! Boycott!” Then there’s the backlash in favour of the poor souls who can’t breastfeed for whatever reason; don’t they have the right to buy t-shirts advertising their own feeding method? Isn’t that in the constitution? There was even, get this, a boycott of the boycott in which people vowed to shop more than usual at Old Navy. And, yes, there were a couple voicesof reason amidst the fracas, too. So if you happen to be compiling a worst-baby-shower-gift-ever list, this shirt could probably crack the top ten. 
  • As long as we’re dipping into last week’s news, people are still reeling from the suicide of a gay Rutgers student and the precipitating invasion of privacy by his roommate. Parents are blogging about raising tolerant and accepting children. Dan Savage talking about getting to be a gay parent will make you cry. Even Sarah Silverman has nothing funny to say about this. I tend to miss much of the Christian-right, homemakers dialogue, somehow, but it seems they have even found nicer waysof saying that homosexuality will send you straight to hell and keep those people away from my children. 
  • Long live high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)! (That’s glucose/fructose for us Canadians.) Mom Central Consulting took on the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) as a client and organized a blog tour to promote the view that HFCS is just like sugar. Several bloggers were paid in gift certificates to pass on the edu-promotional material presented to them. That’s about when the shit hit the fan. Some very capable and level-headed bloggers called out Mom Central and the individual blogs for selling out their integrity on such a hot-button topic. Mom-101 in particular argued against HFCS for nutritional, environmental and economic reasons and stressed that bloggers have an obligation when they’re being paid to know what the hell they’re writing about. Stacy DeBroff of Mom Central responded on her blog with all kinds of golden Star Trek/Borg material. Liz Gumbinner from Mom-101 then answered backon her own blog and now there are a lot of bloggers clutching gift certificates who just don’t understand why the nice doctors would lie to them. 
  • In other totally unrelated mom-bloggers-fawning-over-brands news, the She’s Connected Conference is happening in Toronto in less than two weeks. All over Twitter, Canadian bloggers are gushing about how much they really, really, really want to be selected to attend a one day conference which is going to be half, “Why you should work with brands,” and then the other half, “Hi! Here are the brands!” (I’m not saying I’m not going, I’m just saying I forgot to “apply” until just after the deadline.) It’s better than winning a chance to go to an infomercial; it’s like earning the chance to work for a company — for swag.