Babies ARE gross. They are only cute fresh from a bath and asleep.
They should make an ad that shows a mom fishing a turd out of the bathwater with one hand and trying to support a fish-slippery baby with the other.
Oh, and make the "mom" model not shower three days before the shoot.
I don't know why they don't just round them up in a classroom and show them a video of a woman actually giving birth. They did this at my school, and it worked an absolute treat. Not a single girl in my year had a kid before her mid-20s, in spite of the fact that we lived in an area which at that time had one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Western Europe. (As an aside, that video is also one of the many reasons that I'm now childfree-by-choice and will be for the rest of my life.)
@BiteMeMitchell!: We saw one of those videos. We also had two girls pregnant at graduation, and plenty of others to get knocked up in the next few years.
if people don't know how to use birth control, and are morally opposed to abortions, even knowing giving birth can be unpleasant won't help.
@BiteMeMitchell!: There was an America's Funniest Home Videos entry (I think) filming girls watching a birth video. Had to be the funniest thing I have ever seen. I would venture to guess that none of those girls has quite recovered.
@WaltzingMatilda: ... I don't necessarily understand how it's a good thing to terrorize people with normal biological functions, even intense and dangerous ones?
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@purpleshoes reminds everyone to take typing breaks and stretch, ow: No. It's reality. The birth process is the end result of pregnancy. I noticed that you posted earlier about teens not necessarily thinking that babies poop. You are right - I think you probably grew up in a family/home full of youngsters. (I, myself, helped raise my little sister) Some women have NO idea what is coming to them at the end of the rainbow.
Terrorism, it is not. Education, it is. The side effect - their reactions were funny. I would never think that the Miracle of Life = terrorism.
To really scare off any potential teen mamas, they should show real post-baby photos of stomachs. It's still something many people aren't aware of until they've had kids themselves.
@geeky_reader: They should show what pregnancy does to breast too. They don't always just grow bigger. Sometimes they sag. A lot.
I was watching 16 and Pregnant the other day and this teenage girl was talking to her doctor telling her that she didn't want to breastfeed because she thought it would make her breast sag. The doctor told her that breastfeeding doesn't do that, pregnancy does. But of course she's 16 and pregnant, so the fact she didn't truly realize the effect of what a pregnancy (not the breastfeeding and all the other stuff that comes after) has on a body doesn't surprise me much.
@Sorcha: You'd be surprised how many grown-ass women don't know that. It was shocking to me to find out so many moms on the pregnancy board I frequented were unaware of this - and how many claimed it was their reason for not wanting to BF. Ship's already sailed!
I don't often quote Tori Spelling, but she calls her daughter's blowouts "poop up the puss." Seeing that should freak out a 15 year old. I'm 35, and it works on me.
@Ruby_de_la_Booby: I will never forget the horror of changing a baby girl's poopy diaper for the first, and only, time.
People always think boys are more difficult to clean than girl. That is soooo untrue.
If I Never have to change a baby girl's poopy diaper again, it will be far too soon.
"Poop up the puss" - can you really say that on TV?! Poor kid!
@fluxus flucker: Boys are SO easy to clean! A little more difficult if they're uncircumcised (my son is), but still, I'd take that over cleaning my niece's poopy diapers any day.
The idea of a public scratch and sniff poster is beyond disgusting.
If they really want to gross out teens with info about the hardships of parenthood, they need to print pics of moms & dads with vomit in their hair.
Its shocking how much puke can come out of a baby and how often the puke lands on mom or dad's head. Ugh!
I kind of like this ad. I think showing the "gross realities" might make younger girls/women really reconsider. Babies aren't like they are on tv. They puke, they smell, they scream. Babies eventually grow up, into toddlers, kids, and eventually teenagers.
Kind of like the anti-smoking campaigns. It's not fun and glamorous! heh.
What about when your infant son poops so much that it comes out the diaper and FILLS the legs of his footie pajamas? So when you pick him up, you can FEEL the poo oozing and squishing around. They need to show a picture of THAT.
@spamanda: Ha, or when they learn how to take their diaper off and smear it all over the wall. That was the only time I saw my mother actually cry in despair over a child's behavior!
@spamanda: Yes, I would gladly have posed for an add with my son smearing his poop on the side of the bathtub after pooping on the bathmat seconds before his bath while I stood at the sink crying and scrubbing poop from earlier out of his shorts. Put that in an ad for the kids!
@stacyinbean: Picture this: My sis and her kid both sick with a stomach virus.
My sis is barely able to move, but somehow, even with fever, the kid is energetically playing.
Sis looks up and her kid has vomited all over the floor and used the vomit to finger-paint the walls, furniture, and curtains.
So sis has to clean it up but because she's already woozy, she starts throwing up on the floor too.
And her vomit covered kid starts to play with that vomit, as well. Laughing the entire time.
Or the time, my kid and I both had stomach viruses and I let him sleep in bed with me. I awoke at 3am to feel hot vomit raining down on my face.
Run commercials of these stories on MTV and I suspect there may be a drop in teen pregnancy rates.
@feather_spin: It can also happen when you're leaving for work. Or trying to get said child ready for daycare. Preferrably when the grown up is in "nice" clothes. Obviously.
If they really want to scare them they should show them a blow-out. A little poop in a circle is no big deal! When it goes up the back, up the stomach, on the clothes...THAT'S scary.
@Maritsa: I don't have children but I've nannied some small ones and I know of this chernobyl bowel. The first time I saw one, I burst into tears and not from the sight of the poo but the fumes.
@Maritsa: Oh, god! When the poop goes all the way up to their shoulders!
And then you've got to spend 1/2 an hour to wipe down the baby, do laundry, and give the baby (and possibly yourself) a bath because there is just SO. MUCH. POOP!!!
@Maritsa: Oh yes, or when you remove the baby's diaper to find that, underneath, there's another 'diaper' made entirely of poop. Usually that's the point they do the projectile vomit thing too.
@Maritsa: Yes! I have had many of these. Once when he ate grapes he pooped them out whole and then grabbed one of his poop grapes and attempted to eat it and I had to say "You drop that! It was in your butt!" and then I had to wrestle a poop grape out of his tiny little hand.
@spamanda: It is funny after the fact. There was also a part of me that considered letting him eat the poop grape so he could learn that lesson the hard way.
@EdnasEdibles: Oh god - laughing so hard! Can't breathe! There are actually tears rolling down my face from laughing. I am friending you for pure hilarity.
There was just an article in the Boston Globe about how the nearby town of Revere is protesting the schools handing out contraception, which leads me to wonder where public opinion really lies? It's ok to be scandalized by a hyped up version of the story (i.e. Lifetime movie) but not ok to take real action to prevent it from happening? I realize I'm generalizing here, but it's confounding to me.
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09/10/09
They should make an ad that shows a mom fishing a turd out of the bathwater with one hand and trying to support a fish-slippery baby with the other.
Oh, and make the "mom" model not shower three days before the shoot.
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if people don't know how to use birth control, and are morally opposed to abortions, even knowing giving birth can be unpleasant won't help.
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Terrorism, it is not. Education, it is. The side effect - their reactions were funny. I would never think that the Miracle of Life = terrorism.
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But an appeal to vanity might help.
09/10/09
I was watching 16 and Pregnant the other day and this teenage girl was talking to her doctor telling her that she didn't want to breastfeed because she thought it would make her breast sag. The doctor told her that breastfeeding doesn't do that, pregnancy does. But of course she's 16 and pregnant, so the fact she didn't truly realize the effect of what a pregnancy (not the breastfeeding and all the other stuff that comes after) has on a body doesn't surprise me much.
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I often mourn the loss of my perkies but my kids were so worth it.
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People always think boys are more difficult to clean than girl. That is soooo untrue.
If I Never have to change a baby girl's poopy diaper again, it will be far too soon.
"Poop up the puss" - can you really say that on TV?! Poor kid!
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If they really want to gross out teens with info about the hardships of parenthood, they need to print pics of moms & dads with vomit in their hair.
Its shocking how much puke can come out of a baby and how often the puke lands on mom or dad's head. Ugh!
09/10/09
Kind of like the anti-smoking campaigns. It's not fun and glamorous! heh.
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My sis is barely able to move, but somehow, even with fever, the kid is energetically playing.
Sis looks up and her kid has vomited all over the floor and used the vomit to finger-paint the walls, furniture, and curtains.
So sis has to clean it up but because she's already woozy, she starts throwing up on the floor too.
And her vomit covered kid starts to play with that vomit, as well. Laughing the entire time.
Or the time, my kid and I both had stomach viruses and I let him sleep in bed with me. I awoke at 3am to feel hot vomit raining down on my face.
Run commercials of these stories on MTV and I suspect there may be a drop in teen pregnancy rates.
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Well done for turning me off kids, baby.
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And then you've got to spend 1/2 an hour to wipe down the baby, do laundry, and give the baby (and possibly yourself) a bath because there is just SO. MUCH. POOP!!!
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Man, I'm glad my kids aren't babies any more.
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