Gerber, Enfamil, American Baby, those that profit greatly at living babies existance
We've all had our own horror stories with them. They just don't seem to give a shit that our children are dead, and why should they? Our kids won't be enjoying their snazzy products. So they, lazily, keep us on their mailing lists, disregarding the fact that some of us may have called them, explaining our situation and asking to be removed from the list.
I know they've all heard it before, but these fuckers are so keen on telling all of us how our children should be progressing, what they should be eating and most importantly, which of their products they should be consuming - it would only be fair of each and every one of us, perhaps as a group, to send them a photo/scrap book of our children 'enjoying' their products.
It may seem morbid, to parents of living babies, and those that profit grossly at their existance, but hey, maybe a picture of Hans' box sitting next to a can of Enfamil, or wearing a diaper, or sitting ontop of an edition of American Baby would get the point across.
Goodness knows, the phone calls haven't sunk in.
Are you with me?
I know they've all heard it before, but these fuckers are so keen on telling all of us how our children should be progressing, what they should be eating and most importantly, which of their products they should be consuming - it would only be fair of each and every one of us, perhaps as a group, to send them a photo/scrap book of our children 'enjoying' their products.
It may seem morbid, to parents of living babies, and those that profit grossly at their existance, but hey, maybe a picture of Hans' box sitting next to a can of Enfamil, or wearing a diaper, or sitting ontop of an edition of American Baby would get the point across.
Goodness knows, the phone calls haven't sunk in.
Are you with me?
posted by justinian at 12:06 AM
16 Comments:
I would be with you, but I just imagine the poor intern who opens the mail.
Brilliant, just brilliant.
The intern aside, find out who the person in charge is and mark the envelope 'PERSONAL.' Because it is.
I totally dig what you are saying...just got my big ass complimentary sample of enfamil the other day. Talk about a punch in the gut..your idea of sending the pics of our children enjoying makes me laugh. They really just don't get it.
I am with you. So so with you.
we could call and ask if they have really tiny diapers and give them the measurements of hans's bag-o-ashes. i can hear the silence now.
really, though, although it's not fun to get big 'ol cans of enfamil, i can't seem to rustle up much anger at the baby businesses. to me it's just business. it's not personal. if my mother or my friend kath or my next-door neighbor showed up here with a case of formula, that would hurt. but the big companies are nothing to me.
the other thing is, i'm still in the baby business. i still hope to have a living child, and sooner rather than later. i still want to read insipid articles about child development, god help me. i don't want to be cut out of the loop.
It's their absolute nonchalance, Laura.
Some companies, like baby inc, I expect to atleast lend the air of giving a shit about their customers, while I'm not so concerned about my toothpaste company or toilet paper company being concerned with my mental health.
Funny thing is, we're pretty particular about the toothpaste and toilet paper that we buy and I'm sure that if Tom in Maine received a letter from me suggesting that I had just had all my teeth knocked out in a hockey game, and that the samples that he kept sending me were bugging me, and more so, costing him dough that he didn't need to be wasting, he (or his underlings) would remove me from their list.
It's not that difficult to pretend that they care. Whether or not they really do.
When I got pregnant again and I decided on maternity clothes I went to Motherhood. The lady at the register says...oh...would you like to receive free shit from us? (Okay..she didn't really call it shit.) I was like...NO. She said...oh but we send you blah blah blah. I said... NO! I was about two seconds away from loudly saying...no because last time when my died I didn't like getting all that crap in the mail from you! I wanted to say it really loud too because there was this girl with her mom in the store and she was like 8 weeks pregnant and they were buying a ton of stuff.
We all buy, well those of us lucky enough to be able to, tons of stuff with our first pregnancies.
And well, I'm not so sure that they shouldn't be - living kids deserve to be afforded every single thing that they can be given to them. Well, somethings should never be bought, but anyhow...
I just got some crap from Gerber the other day. Free photo sessions and other little goodies keep coming. Beechnut and Luvs are still sending me emails. Finally got iVillage to lay off, they couldn't get the point.
What's hilariously funny though, is for months after my miscarriage I kept getting american baby or some such free magazine. I called and cried trying to get me the hell off their mailing list. A few months later, I was signing up for it again. And again I got to cancel! Third time's a charm, I ain't asking for NOTHIN' next time.
PS - I saved the formula samples for a while, but donated them to the women's help center recently.
justin, i'm not denigrating your anger at the baby businesses. i think it's entirely appropriate, and it's certainly the norm among our sort. i just can't get worked up about it for myself at this point. but that doesn't mean that i think you shouldn't be angry about it.
to be fair, it's not as though we've actually asked to be taken off of anyone's list - at least i haven't; if you have, i don't know about it.
and for the record, that day the week after hans died, when you took the enfamil from the mailbox and gave it to ron so i wouldn't have to see it - it was one of the sweetest, most loving things you ever did, which is no small statement.
te amo, mi amornino.
while i understand that they are big corporations thus incredibly impersonal, i think that like the general public, they should be made more aware of the huge number of womyn grieving due to stillbirths or miscarriages and they need to be more sensitive. perhaps you can creatively educate them? i really don't think its a bad idea...a good way to start changing the insensitivity and raise awareness.
Maybe we can guilt them into donating some funds to our respective charities/memorials of choice?
now THAT'S a plan i can get behind, especially if they're donating to the johannes memorial music scholarship fund.
Am I with you?
I'm with you too, but a bit puzzled as to how you got on these lists in the first place. Did you register for them or get enrolled automatically somehow? I don't get anything like this so either not registering is the answer, or the Canadian market is just not large enough for them to bother with.
This is the kind of thing you need to bug a politician about, full-on sob story, the whole nine yards.
babymama, the insurance company sent out a package automatically after the first 'baby' visit turned up on their account. I was blown away by that. Some of the 'goodies' followed in a similar way, from hospital or insurance while some may have come from the babystore or some online deal that Laura signed up for.
Honestly, I'm fairly certain that most of this stuff came, and continues to come, auto generated.
Truth be told, I'm fairly lazy, so a full onslaught to politicians is unlikely ... but I'm tempted by the picture idea - which is a bit morbid, but funny as hell to me nonetheless. I do see Dennis Kucinich from time to time at a restaurant I go to (I'm that other veggie guy) and at the airport fairly often; it's a good idea, I should mention it.
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