Motrin Moms Commercial causes outrage. Thing is: seriously?

There’s PR controversy afoot in the blogosphere and Twitter today about a commercial for Motrin, a US brand of Ibuprofen.

The commercial is a little tongue in cheek, referring to the practice of wearing children in a sling or similar as being “in fashion” and talking about the issues related to carrying a child being painful.

You can see the full commercial below. Turns out not everyone out there has an even small sense of humor, and the ad is now being talked about a massive PR blunder. You can track the conversation on Twitter here.

Here’s the thing: seriously? Aren’t there far more important things to get worked up about than a glib comment about carrying a baby in a sling being in fashion (which seems to be the biggest gripe).

Here’s the second thing: wearing a baby in a sling IS IN FASHION. If you’re Gen X, ask YOUR parent about how many of them carried YOU in a sling.

Third: yes, being close to your child is a good thing, but here’s the other thing I know from experience IT F$%@ING HURT MY BACK. It also hurt my wife’s back. We purchased an insanely expensive sling/ child back/ forward thing when our now 6 year old son was born. Between us I reckon it would have been lucky to have been used a dozen times because that’s how much it hurt both our backs.

Honesty people, Motrin is guilty of having a little fun, nothing more, there’s no evil multinational conspiracy to slag you off or insult your child raring. I respect that some of you may not share the joke, but I don’t respect that you’re spending a pile of time on this.

PS: before you start crying “you’re a man, you couldn’t understand” let me warn you in advance that such as statement is sexist (and perhaps the ad is a little as well by only targeting mothers), and secondly, I’m the one at home running around after my son and doing “mom” things.