Every morning, Hannah-Marie Clayton’s dad makes her favorite breakfast — a bowl of Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies.
So, the 10-year-old from England was bothered when she read the slogan printed on the box of the chocolate-flavored cereal, branded as Coco Pops in the U.K.: “loved by kids, approved by mums.”
The message, Hannah-Marie thought, erases dads from the picture — and could also hurt kids who don’t have moms in their lives for one reason or another. The girl complained in the only manner she knew how. She wrote a letter and addressed it to Kellogg’s, The Independent reports.
“My mum was away so I was just with my dad when I saw it on the cereal box. It made me think that dads should be included as well because they are important too. Also, some people don’t have a mum and they might find it upsetting,” the schoolgirl from Bournemouth said, as per The Independent.
In response, the company said that it will be changing the cereal’s slogan to: “loved by kids, approved by parents.”
“I feel that quote is sexist, men are also able to make breakfast. My dad does it a lot for me because my mum works away a lot and is not always there for breakfast,” her letter read. “I would recommend instead of putting ‘mums’, put parents or carers. It would just mean a small change. In this world today we shouldn’t just rely on women.”
And Kellogg’s said Hannah-Marie is absolutely correct, adding that dads also love Coco Pops.
“We have now changed the wording on our new Coco Pops packs to say ‘approved by parents’. We agree with Hannah-Marie, dads love to have Coco Pops too,” a spokesperson for the company said, according to The Independent report.
Kellogg’s changes Coco Pops slogan after schoolgirl, 10, tells them it’s ‘sexist’ https://t.co/SYjgP9QhDG pic.twitter.com/vKiso1kAyV
— WalesOnline ??????? (@WalesOnline) September 13, 2018
The Duchess of Sussex would be proud of Hannah-Marie. As The Independent pointed out in a different report, a young Meghan Markle also wrote a letter to a company to question the message it was sending to young girls and women everywhere. Markle had an issue with an ad for Ivory dishwasher soap, which said, “women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.”
Markle went all in. She wrote letters to the soap’s manufacturer — Procter & Gamble — as well as civil rights lawyer Gloria Allred, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and Nick News anchor Linda Ellerbee.
“I don’t think it’s right for children to grow up thinking these things, that mom does everything,” Markle said at the time.
As a result, the company changed the wording of the ad by replacing “women” with “people.”
