This is an ad created by Ogilvy and Mather, India for The Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption & Child Welfare.
In case you can't read the small print, the ad copy says, "Adopt. Receive more than you can give."
For an excellent analysis of the ad, from an adoptee's perspective, please visit http://www.harlowmonkey.typepad.com/ and read her Feb. 15th post and the interesting exchange of comments.
This ad may have been created to capture the hearts and minds of prospective adoptive parents (especially the crazy needy ones), but what it does - brilliantly - is capture the creepy, disturbing, skewed relationship of a parentified child caretaking her narcissistic parent.
4 comments:
Anne again - boy, is this EVER triggering! I am picturing myself as the little girl, who has the toughest job on the planet - making sure her aparent's needs are met, when all the while that aparent is nasty, critical, judgmental, and emotionally abusive. This is horrible. The discussion on Harlow's Monkey is interesting and worth reading. I still can't help but view this through my own filter and it's horribly disturbing to me, as someone who also suffered both adoption and N aparents.
This is nasty. Sad.
I can apply it to a non-adoption psycho- parent I know. He used his children to get attention and attract women- he was married too.
They could put the kid in a box with a bow and a tag that says: for you.
I agree this ad is wretched.
Anne,
Long before I ever saw this picture, my therapist asked me to try to visualize myself as a child...who's parents could not see or her acknowledge her needs. Just theirs. It was a terrifying exercise...so lonely. It sounds like you did the same thing when you saw this picture. Maybe this will have some sort of therapeutic value...dunno...but I hope so for your sake. I think we need to more than acknowledge what was done...we need to respect the pain that we suffered.
HWS: Nasty, indeed! If the kid knew what was in store for her - a lifetime of slavery - she might ask her keepers not to bother poking holes in the box!
Ooooooh boy. Ug ug ug. I don't know what the ad was trying to say, well I know it's saying adoption is cool and all, but but but.... God I hate that picture! Creepy creepy creepy! Whoa, I just got a flashback of my dad crying and bawling next to me on the sofa and weepingly begging me to take care of him when he's old and sick because my mom is so mean and everything. I was 18 years old and really wanted to say "for gawd sake man, grow up and act like a man!"
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