Fuck yeah, Porno PTA Mom!

I'm up too late on a Friday night, fighting a week-long stretch of insomnia.  I thought I'd use this time to catch up on my 30 Rocks, because we no longer have cable and I'd like to be smug and hipster about that, but it's just because we're cheap.

So I'm up at one in the morning watching the new season on Hulu, and the following advertisement happens.  Try to picture it, I just may not be able to put it into words.

White background. Model, in all white clothes, ridiculously high heels, struts down a hallway, holding a whisk.  She walks past podiums holding Betty Crocker cake mix boxes.  These boxes explode in vibrant red and blue.  The model crushes two eggs in her bare hands, with no regard to where the shells land.  All throughout the ad, sultry music plays and she clearly is in control of this domestic situation.  The last line of the ad:  "DOMINATE THAT PTA BAKE SALE".   And then in whispered tones "theeverydaycollectionbytarget".

It's not good enough that you're in shape.

It's not good enough that you're stylish.

It's not good enough that you're dressed and made up like someone who goes out to clubs at 11pm and IS EXCITED ABOUT IT.

Now you have to be the best mom at the PTA by using a Betty Crocker cake mix.

As if that would even compete in this age of organic, hand milled everything where no matter what you do, some mom has done it better, has milled her own wheat, or some sort of freak non-wheat because gluten is evil, and has used the self-generated energy from her house to concoct level 5 vegan cupcakes (the kind that doesn't cast a shadow, if you're not a Simpsons fan this may not make sense, but trust me, it's a hilarious pop culture reference).

My distress about this ad, which repeated every time there was a break in my show, is not about my inability to cook, or my lack of time to mill my own non-gluten grain, or whatever.  The root of my distress is that I have extensive education in marketing and business.  And that lets me know that if this ad exists, it's because market research was done and an opportunity was identified and seized.

That opportunity was based on the inadequacy that all moms feel.  We're not good enough because we haven't lost the weight, because we aren't made up and dressed up every day, because we don't have baked goods every day, because, as usual, women compete against each other for no good reason at all.  When we really should be leaning on one another, even if we don't agree on everything.  I don't care if you breastfeed til your kid is five and try to feed them organic everything and use cloth diapers and I happened to just catch my kid eating a goldfish cracker he found in my own bedsheets from a snack he had at least two days ago (hint-he still ate it).

I'm done trying to top other moms and I'm done supporting organizations that capitalize on my own feelings of inadequacy as a parent and as a mom.  So as hard as it is to say, fuck you, Target.  We're all doing our best, even if we do it in yoga pants, old sneakers, no makeup, and the reassurance that our kids really don't give a shit what baked goods we bring to the bake sale as long as we love them.  I'm better than you and I'm better than fitting into a cookie-cutter image of a parent that was identified by....who again?

Oh yeah, and I can make cupcakes from scratch, when I feel like it.  Which is mostly never.