“You don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent” is the tagline for public service announcements by the Ad Council, and they’re irresponsible.
These ads come on regularly on radio and can be seen on YouTube.
The “perfect parent” tagline is meant to reassure potential adoptive or foster parents that they don’t need to be mistake-free or be able to walk on water to provide a loving, stable home for a child.
The ads highlight that everyday people can make a real difference in a child’s life.
But there’s a big problem with this ongoing ad campaign.
The ads are distributed nationally by the Ad Council.
The campaign itself is centered on AdoptUSKids, a national project that provides information and support for adopting kids from the U.S. foster care system and directs interested listeners to AdoptUSKids.org.
The effort is conducted in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which works to raise awareness about the many children in foster care.
These ads have always troubled me, and I just can’t believe for a single moment that out of millions of listeners over the years that these ads have been running, that I’M the only person who has the following perspective on this long-running campaign.
- The ads encourage anyone to become a parent — and this would include those with serious mental health issues.
- The ads tell people, who are unsure of their ability to parent, to go ahead and take on what’s often hailed as the most difficult job in the world.
The last thing that kids in foster care need – especially disabled ones – is being adopted by people with mental problems, anger management issues, substance abuse struggles and other personal barriers to being a highly effective parent.
Being a parent is often called “the hardest job in the world.”
Now certainly, we’ve all met parents who’ll tell you that they loved every moment of it and actually didn’t consider it the hardest job anyone could have.
They’ll tell you that being an aerospace engineer or working a grinding 40 hours a week at a bakery is the toughest job.
Meanwhile, many parents do affirm that raising children is the toughest job out there.
Yet here are these “perfect parent” ads literally encouraging potentially corrupt people to take kids into their homes.
Being On The Fence
The ads target adults who are on the fence – or unsure – whether or not they should adopt a child.
But if someone’s unsure or lacks confidence about their ability to be a mom or dad – then doggone, why would any advertising agency and other organizations promote encouraging these very people to commit to the toughest job on the planet?
If someone’s unsure or feels incapable of being a good parent – they’re probably right!
There’s a reason why Joe or Jane believe they’d fail as a loving, smart, dependable and empowering parent to an adopted child.
If someone has any misgivings about raising a child newly brought into their home from an orphanage – a child who very possibly could have emotional or behavioral challenges due to past abuse – then that adult should NOT be urged to be a parent. This is 1 + 1 = 2.
Examples of Some Ads
One radio spot centers on a parent who overreacted earlier by yelling when their kid spilled something or broke a household rule.
The scene is the parent later apologizing and explaining they were frustrated, not angry at the child.
Another radio ad depicts a parent trying to comfort a child who’s upset about not being chosen for something at school.
The parent admits they don’t know the right thing to say.
Very interesting. How about addressing that parent who knocks his boy on the head after he strikes out at bat and calls him a loser?
Hopefully, these ads won’t sink in to that kind of individual.
I once read of a woman who was so angered that her 11-year-old daughter didn’t do well in a figure skating competition, that in the locker room she sneered, “You’re a disgrace to the entire family.”
Hopefully, the Ad Council ads won’t reach these kind of people!
I once saw a woman at a supermarket push her young daughter to the floor and pull her hair.
Hopefully, these ads, which were created by the Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners agency, won’t put the idea in the heads of such horrible people to adopt.
More examples of ads, on YouTube:
A parent gives a child a haircut that goes wrong, leaving uneven bangs.
Parents burn breakfast while trying to create a special family moment.
A father attempts a home improvement project and clearly fails.
I mean, come on, what totally trite, trivial and lame examples.
- What the heck does botching a home improvement project have to do with parenting?
- Same with unevenly cutting hair.
- Making breakfast falls under the category of cooking, not parenting.
Parents DO need to know the “right” thing to say when their child isn’t chosen for something at school.
How mom or dad respond, though with heartfelt intentions, could backfire, especially if the situation is recurring.
Final Thoughts
Certainly, there should be ongoing awareness campaigns to call attention to the thousands of kids in foster care who need loving stable homes.
For example, there was a news station that would have a “Wednesday’s Child” segment profiling a different child each week who needed a home.
There’s ways to pump out the awareness without encouraging potentially abusive or neglectful people from adopting kids.
A woman once told me that while growing up, her father would call her a stupid bitch and hit her.
I knew a man who told me that he went to high school with a boy who’d get beaten up by bullies.
The boy would go home with signs of having been beaten. His father, enraged that his son could never fight back, would give him a beating.
Hopefully, people like this, who just might be thinking about adopting, won’t ever hear the incredibly irresponsible “You don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent” ads.
And don’t ever assume that rotten people would never consider adopting.
Nothing could be further from the truth; cruel people adopt – just like cruel people procreate.
Haven’t you ever read of cases where foster or adoptive parents are charged with abuse including starving a disabled child? Go ahead, google it.
In the internationally publicized Joel Steinberg case, he (an attorney) and his common-law wife, Hedda Nussbaum, were charged in 1987 with beating their adopted daughter Lisa to death at age six. Another adopted child, just two, was found tethered to a bedpost in his waste.
