Laura on Life

Nobody looks that good!

By Laura Snyder

[May 09, 2009]  Television commercials are big fat lies. I used to believe them when I was a kid. I really thought that kids would like a certain cereal if "Mikey" liked it. The newest toy was always on my Christmas wish list because, well, the kids on TV looked so happy when they played with it. I believed those commercials ... until I became a mom.

Now, as a mom, I am indignant. How dare they place such high standards for us? I have never once seen a mom on a commercial for children's nighttime cold medicine who is wearing pink sweats and a stained T-shirt and has bags under her eyes. I know for a fact that when you have a sick kid, you do not roll out of bed in the middle of the night with perfectly coiffed hair, looking like you've just had a facial. Nobody looks that good at 2 o'clock in the morning! You wouldn't look that good even if you didn't have a kid who woke you up every hour coughing, sneezing and tossing his cookies.

I also know that moms who manage to keep their floors looking immaculate do not allow their 2-year-old to attempt to pour a full, half-gallon of orange juice into a glass cup strategically placed on said floor, simply to have a chance to use their paper towels. This scenario does not happen in real life.

If an ambitious 2-year-old should attempt this trick without parental permission -- which, incidentally, does happen in real life -- the mom would not casually stroll into the room, smiling and shaking her head as if she doesn't have to clean that floor again, sweep up the broken glass, buy more orange juice and hose down the child. I don't care how good that paper towel is; it can't do all that. If it did, I'd buy it by the truckload.

Most moms, when staying at home with the kids, look as if they've been pulling their hair out by the roots. Makeup is an unrealized goal most days, and our teeth never look like perfectly white rows of corn on the cob, especially when gritted to keep from screaming. We make a special effort to look presentable when we go out of the house, but if no one but the kids is going to see us, why bother? And believe me, there have been days when I could be seen wandering around a drugstore searching for Huggies and looking like Medusa. Some days are like that.

There is usually no time for any kind of perfection. If you've got young children at home, simply getting a shower is the Holy Grail. Why do producers of TV commercials insist on making it look so easy? Maybe these are people who don't spend much time around kids.

I love that commercial where the mom allows an entire kids' football team into her immaculate home and then worries about fingerprints on her glass tabletops. Fingerprints would be the least of my worries. I'd wonder whether there would be enough food for the rest of the week. It would be like letting a horde of locusts into a cornfield. You'd have to padlock the refrigerator and hide the dry goods somewhere they'd never look ... like the laundry room.

But no, this mom is dressed in heels and wiping up fingerprints. And why on earth does she have glass tabletops in a house that harbors football players? Is she insane?

Well, yes, I guess we can assume that she is. What other reason do we have as to why a woman would turn an entire football team loose on her squeaky-clean home?

Either she's lost her mind, or advertising people live on an entirely different planet than I do.

[By LAURA SNYDER]

Laura Snyder is a nationally syndicated columnist, author and speaker. You can reach her at [e-mail] or visit www.lauraonlife.com for more info.