Hello, readers. We are back navigating the mess of parenthood with humor, compassion and common sense. This is a post in the Navigating the Noise series. A series focused on tools for navigating the noisy world of parenting advice. Approaching parenting content through a lens of influence and culture among other things.
You can check out previous posts similar to this one, here.
Was anyone else big on pinkie promises? I remember a phase of life where the pinkie promise was the ultimate promise. If you broke a pinkie promise, you were a suspicious person and all future interactions deserved incredible caution. Perhaps social dynamics were simpler in elementary school? When you become an adult it gets a little more complicated. You encounter promises between partners, friends, co-workers and even promises from businesses, corporations, and the government. Your morning cereal makes promises, too, “This will start your day right!”
Will it, dear cereal box, will it?!?
How to get your kids to do chores and love it!
This is not a promise I will make to you. There are a whole lot of these “promises” in parent space. Time to pause and think about separating advice from promises. Advice is guidance or a recommendation about future action. The promise or gurantee is added on to strengthen the pull to the advice. It’s the marketing. Marketing is most commonly associated with the selling of products like cereal, but it plays a big role in the parent space.
It’s marketing 101 that you need to make your idea or product compelling to your audience. Therefore you get statements that say a strategy or product will definitely work and not only will it work, it will solve all the problems. And wouldn’t it be great it that happened? However, kids and families are more complicated than most of the advice out there sounds.
It’s helpful to remind yourself of constantly, no one can make these promises. No one can tell you with 100% confidence what will serve your child/family at this moment. People are just too complex for this to be true. Some will use their personal success within their family as their data, but their family is not yours. This holds even when there is research to support a claim, it is not a guarantee.
As
captures in her article Does Research Show Whether Couples’ Therapy Will Work for YOU?“Let me bluntly state it: science offers lots of important information, but it can’t predict what will happen for any one individual or couple. Meaning, when people in the media or experts on whatever platform (Tiktok! Instagram!) tell you if you do THIS, it will lead to THAT, you should be very, very skeptical.”
This is very true for parenting, too. The discussion on the research sometimes lacks key information or the strength of the findings is exaggerated. Even if the research is strong, remember it’s not a foregone conclusion that it is going to be what happens for you.
reminds us that we are indeed unique individuals:“That’s because research offers insights into what is likely, on average, to happen. And you are not an average.”
On repeat, you are not an average, and nor is your kid. We do the best we can with the information we have. The research is a piece of information, but not the whole story. So, does that mean we should just throw it all out the window? No.
Where’s the line?
Hearing the research and stories of lived experiences bring great value to making decisions. They provide guidance and context for possible future actions. The advice may seem very logical. The challenge is that marketing is not geared towards the logical, it’s geared towards the emotional. And is there anything we are more emotional about, than our kids?
We may be willing to call out corporations for troubling marketing but we do this less in the sphere of parenting. Maybe we don’t expect it in this arena? Maybe it’s the type of messengers we encounter? No matter the reason, advertising and marketing is all around us. For many professionals, licensing and ethical standards are in place to protect consumers as well as direct professionals on appropriate advertising and marketing. Psychologists have ethical principles and a code of conduct for instance:
5.01 Avoidance of False or Deceptive Statements (of The American Psychological Association's (APA) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct)
…(b) Psychologists do not make false, deceptive, or fraudulent statements concerning (1) their training, experience, or competence; (2) their academic degrees; (3) their credentials; (4) their institutional or association affiliations; (5) their services; (6) the scientific or clinical basis for, or results or degree of success of, their services; (7) their fees; or (8) their publications or research findings.
Even with ethical and state licensing rules in place for certain professions, there are certainly those who skirt the line. And many parent content creators don’t fall into a regulated professional title, such as a parent coach. Let’s be clear, that not all therapists, coaches, and online content creators are creating unethical or inappropriate claims. Sometimes the criticism paints only one picture—that everyone is aiming to manipulate you. Many people market in ethical and appropriate ways. Some people are likely not intending harm but are swayed by the dominant tone and narrative of modern-day marketing. Poor choices are made, but it doesn’t mean that all of these individuals are crooks. It is a challenge in today’s attention economy to stay afloat. It doesn’t make it right and it needs to be addressed, but it is worth considering how the market influences people to promote themselves in ways not aligned with their values and intent. There is an opportunity for more discussion on how professionals can promote higher standards of marketing in the parent space as well as finding ways to support others through mentorship and education.
Some common claims
It seems like we all have some work to do. And for the readers encountering advice with a layer of marketing slathered on top, here are some examples of claims to take with a grain of salt. Here are three types of common claims or marketing angles around parenting content:
This course/book/method has helped 1,000s (or any large number) of families
This type of statement can be tailored to a product and alleges a success rate without reliable data. The data is likely connected to the number of purchases, downloads, or workshop attendees. The issue is the jump to the success or effectiveness of the product. It is hard to know if families were truly “helped” by this product. As someone who has personally purchased courses that have sat in my email inbox for months with no action, the act of purchasing does not translate into my use or “success” with the product.
This is the only approach/course/group that will teach you XYZ
This is a bold claim in the Information Age. In a world that abounds with information (many times to our detriment) it is difficult to believe that this is really a unique combination of information. It is worth to step back and evaluate if there are other ways to get this information.
XYZ strategy works every single time
As previously discussed, that even with research backing it would be very difficult to support this claim. There are so many variables in humans, that this is hard to substantiate.
There are more common types of marketing angles in the parent space and once you start tuning in, they are hard to miss. So why does it matter?
The cost of the oversell
There is of course, the financial impact if you are purchasing a product, but there is also an emotional cost. Marketing meets advice. We buy a product. The product does not in fact solve all the problems. When the promise feels so strong, so persuasive, who do we blame? Often ourselves. We must have done it incorrectly or not tried hard enough. We neglect to account for other factors, like perhaps this product wasn’t a right match for us. Raise your hand if you took on the emotional burden of something not working out?
Just in case you are wondering, I am raising my hand.
Can we separate the marketing and the product?
Is it possible to separate the marketing techniques from the core product? That course might serve you. This book might be exactly what you're looking for. And the membership is the support you need right now. All of these things may be true. Marketing is aimed at being deeply personal and emotional, but it has a lot in common with a cereal box. Tuning into and then tuning out the marketing of a product, helps you become more aware of what the product actually is. And helps you sort out what you are really in the market for.
Proceed with caution and compassion
Once you start tuning into some of the promise-filled language, you can pause and lean into a little skepticism. A pause allows you to sort through what is “selling” you on this product. Being thoughtful in your approach doesn’t mean you can’t purchase a product if is something that may support you. But a mindful approach allows for weeding out bold claims that are too good to be true. A little skepticism may also support you in setting more appropriate expectations for how useful something will be for your life.
Yes, sometimes we make mistakes. We spend a lot of money on a course that is going to change our lives! But then we still have the same life, just $1000 less in our bank account. Your kid still has tantrums and you can’t seem to remember to do the self-affirmations that translate into our kids taking their cereal bowls to the sink? Be kind to you. If you were hopeful and something didn’t work the way you hoped, it’s okay. Beating yourself up won’t make the situation any better. Self-compassion is a helpful tool to have and then you can better assess what wasn’t useful and what you might do differently.
Need a refressher on self-compassion? Read more here:
Other places to tune in about the marketing claims
Does anyone else hang out on the Truth In Advertising website? No, just me? I have found that TINA.org has great information available with consumer news, ad alerts, and a blog. Even when the ad alerts are about chocolate frosting ingredients or deceptive potato chips claims, tuning into how advertising can bend (or ignore) the truth, you can see patterns in other spaces as well.
Yes, this episode of the Culture Study Podcast is more oriented toward the physical items we buy. But it does help you think about how we purchase parent/family-related products which is so often done online.
Here is another way to think about branding and how to navigate online content, it is both delicious and useful.
Marketing Meets Parenting Advice