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You've gotta admit, it's kind of amazing how riled up people can get over something as simple and innocuous as a 30-second commercial. The latest that's getting folks on the Internet up in arms? A Kay Jewelers ad featuring two happy parents waiting to meet their baby at an adoption center. How could something like that possibly be offensive? Wellllll ...
People are commenting on everything from worrying about the infant's birth mother to the fact that this new mom is getting a necklace for basically doing nothing to being annoyed that Kay Jewelers seems to be using a private, very intimate moment to sell necklaces. Tasteless. Offensive. Insensitive. That's what they're calling it. And I kind of get it. There's certainly something about this commercial that can rub you the wrong way. Before you go raging on about how quickly we as a society are to get offended, hear me out first.
I can kind of, sort of ... well, barely relate to this commercial because I was 4 months old when I was adopted. I wasn't given to my parents in a nice, clean office by some smiling, happy adoption center lady. After enduring hours on a flight across the Pacific with lots of other babies on their way to meet their new parents, my entire family (parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents) were waiting for me at the gate (you could do that back in the day), with cameras, gifts, stuffed animals, and balloons ready. There was a whole lot of cheering and crying and poking. It sounds like it would have been an awesome, fun, loving moment -- if only I had remembered it.
Which is why I understand that this commercial is irksome to a lot of folks for whom adoption is such a personal issue. It seems like the commercial is perverting this very genuine, touching moment that my own family had gone through.
Enough for now, let's watch:
See this video on The Stir by CafeMom.
So there it is. Also, I take some issue with how commenters are taking away from this (fictitious) couple's joy by talking about what pain and agony the birth mother must be in. You can bet that the last thing on my parents' minds when they first met the baby they so desperately wanted was the state of mind of my birth mother, and I don't blame them in the slightest for that. Why spoil such a special moment for two new parents? On the flip side, perhaps this would be very difficult to watch as a mother who did have to give up her baby to the adoption process, and Kay Jewelers should have been more sensitive about that (yet I doubt that would have sold many necklaces ...). There's just so much that goes into the adoption process that is impossible to encapsulate in a mere 30 seconds.
Granted, commercials have been made surrounding intimate moments since commercials were invented -- covering everything from one's wedding day to the birth of their children to the mourning of a loved one. But there's something kind of gross about using adoption, which comes with a whole bunch of controversy, to sell open heart necklaces.
My adoption story had a very happy ending, and I love my parents and can't imagine my life without them. I hope that my birth mother is at peace with such a difficult, heartbreaking decision and that she knows, deep down, her little baby is thriving, healthy, and happy. Which is why I can't help but be annoyed that all the emotions and unanswered questions that go into adoption were made over into a simplistic, happy, 30-second commercial peddling jewelry.
What do you think of this commercial?
Image via Platinum Adverts/YouTube
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