It’s a good life

The rest of the world must think we’re insane. Thanks to the miracle that is Tivo, I rarely have to endure commercials, so I’m not sure how long the latest Pediasure drink commercial has been around, but I saw it for the first time last night and it really kind of freaked me out. I realize that there has been an ongoing trend in advertisement featuring disrespectful children rolling their eyes derisively and contemptuously at their parents, but I haven’t seen one yet where a parent actually seems afraid of her child.

The commercial begins with a nervously concerned mother wheeling her little girl around the grocery store. At one aisle she says a little tentatively, “We need chicken.”

The little girl wrinkles her nose and says, “I don’t wike chicken!”

This continues for several more food items. Each time the food item is proffered the little girl declares she doesn’t like it. The tone of the little girl transcends typical spoiled brattiness. She says it like she’s making a threat.

Back at home the mother offers the Fussiest Little Eater a bottle of Pediasure, a drink concocted from sugar water with some vitamins and electrolytes thrown in. While the little girl drinks it down, she shoots her mother an evil smirk that clearly communicates, “This will do, for now.” The anxious mother breathes a sigh of relief.

The Pediasure ad reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode It's a Good Life in which the entire town is held captive by a tyrannical little boy with supernatural powers. The townspeople spend their days groveling before him and trying to keep him amused because if anyone displeases him - and boy is he easily displeased - he’ll send them to "the cornfield," where something unspeakably awful happens.

Nobody wants a Corrections style scene of an all night stand off at the dining room table over the liver and rhubarb monstrosity that Edith is trying to force down her son, but can't we have some sort of middle ground? Parents, even if your kids can program the VCR and do other things that technologically intimidate you, they can't send you to the cornfield, or to the Veldt, or wherever. Step up and be a parent.