This week I came across something I felt was heartfelt and inspiring…
A piece of advertising which will go down as inspirational …it is an advert for Coca-Cola Middle East and part of a campaign entitled Remove labels this Ramadan.
This Coca-Cola advert has six people in a darkened room talking to one another. When the lights go on, each person is surprised to discover they did not expect the person they were conversing with to look a certain way: from the wheelchair user, to the heavily tattooed guy to the traditionally dressed Arab. Each person then gets a box, when opened, it they discover it contains a red can with a statement on there: labels are for cans not for people.
A wonderful campaign designed to advocate a voice of tolerance and removing prejudice. This got me thinking, as parents do we give our children labels: he is sporty, or a bit of a geek, she’s quiet shy or demure, or they are an academic.
What we don’t want our children to be is stereotypes. Yet as adults and parents, we do group children together and label them? As parents we also make judgements on the children we do or don’t want playing with our children. Children come from that estate or that family where the reputation or history of others dictates how we feel about a certain child.
We tend to make these judgements amongst ourselves as adults, but do we create self-fulfilling caricatures when we do it with children?
I don’t we plan it. So when we talk about our children try, for a day- try not to give them a label or to judge others they associate with because of a label attached to where they live, what they wear or who their parents are.
Remember: labels are for cans, not for people.
Till next week,
Marc
The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the blogger and do not necessarily represent the views of Dad.info.
