This past week, I was invited to attend an event on behalf of 40 chosen Canadian bloggers to start a new Proctor & Gamble mom ambassadorship. When I first received the email, I was a little shocked since I haven’t been invited to anything in an ambassador-type role before. Obviously, I needed to spread the word to some of my close bloggy friends but kept the word slightly under-wraps until I learned more about the program.
I’ve obviously been travelling a little bit, between Vancouver and Toronto, Adam and I had to get a little creative with childcare. We didn’t anticipate a problem, but unfortunately, he’s nearing a deadline and I wasn’t able to attend the event in the end. Why still talk about it then? Well, even though I didn’t get to attend the event, I’m still considered a P&G Mom- especially since they were so understanding about my situation! Obviously recruiting mom’s to attend an event, our children come first.
I took to the Tweeter- a place that I’ve been trying to hang out more, still not sold. Anyway, the day before the event, I was scrolling through some tweets, looking at the excitement I’d be joining in the morning (at this point, I was still attending in the morning). I was looking forward to meeting up with some old friends and meeting new ones that I’ve been talking with online.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not really in love with Twitter. I tend to go and scroll through to see if there’s anything of importance for me. Plus, I hadn’t used the #PGMom hashtag yet, so I wanted to get it loaded on my phone. Amongst the excitement of attending a brand event, there were some people who decided to take it upon themselves to say that we didn’t know what we were getting into, we should not be paid in toothpaste and if we cared for our family we wouldn’t use P&G products. I’m not sure about you, but I try to make informed decisions on what I buy for my household. I was a little insulted to read that people think I’m selling out for a tube of toothpaste. Come on.
Tenille brought up some amazing points. As bloggers, we make decisions who we want to work with everyday. Companies are understanding how important advertising via blog posts is important (at least Canada is finally catching up, it’s been popular in the US for years now) So yes, I was thrilled to be selected as a Proctor and Gamble mom. I use many of these products in our own home and saving money and working with a brand that’s mutually beneficial is a high point for me. You can pick the people you choose to work with, as I’m doing now. Not sure why we need to bash other mom’s for making decisions that differ from yours, but I assure you, myself and the other 40 P&G moms didn’t blindly sign up to be an ambassador only to be paid in toothpaste. But even if we had? Who cares, that’s our decision and we’re voicing our opinions on our blogs.
Some of the tweets that caught my attention:
Dozens of Canadian children poisoned by Tide detergent pods after mistaking them for candy. bit.ly/RJ4vu6 #pgmom
— phdinparenting (@phdinparenting) November 7, 2012
Perhaps this is just me, but wouldn’t this be the parents fault? Not Tide? The pods should have been somewhere where children wouldn’t have access to them. Almost like the McDonald’s law suit that a woman sued because her hot coffee burned her. Obviously it was the coffee’s fault (and brand), not user error.
Moms have a powerful voice. Use it to ask tough questions and demand answers, not just to get free stuff. #pgmom
— phdinparenting (@phdinparenting) November 7, 2012
I often joke that I’m doing this blogging thing for the swag, but lets face it, I’m not. Reviews and Giveaways aren’t my main focus, blogging about special needs and raising awareness is.
.@commoncentsmom I don’t like using products from cos that hide toxic ingredients like P&G. My family’s health is too important. #pgmom
— phdinparenting (@phdinparenting) November 8, 2012
Now because I choose to use some P&G products my family’s health isn’t important?
And just so you know, Annie wasn’t the only person with “interesting” tweets:
So you align yourself w a big company & then get upset when people offer criticism? Because it’s not fun anymore? I guess I called that one.
— Rebecca Cuneo Keenan (@rebeccakeenan) November 10, 2012
Ouch. I know that my skin has gotten thicker since blogging- but telling me I’m not looking out for my family’s health is upsetting when you’re giving your “criticism”. Maybe relay the facts, don’t throw other moms under the bus for the choices we make for our families.
Cheryl — I can’t comment on whether your family’s health is important to you or not. I assume it is. But I do wonder why people who are aware of the toxins in some of the P&G products would continue to bring them into their homes when there are alternatives that are just as cheap or cheaper and just as effective.
I can’t pretend to understand other people’s motivations, but MY motivation is doing what is best for my family’s health with the information that is available to me. At the same time, I also want to ensure that other families are protected from those toxins by (a) getting information out there (many people aren’t aware) and (b) pressuring the company to make changes (which it would be easy for them to do).
That is partly selfless (I don’t want to see other people hurting when their family members get sick) and partly selfish (I pay into our healthcare system just like everyone else does, so lower rates of allergies, cancer, etc. is important to keeping our tax rates reasonable).
Whatever happened to “To each their own”? Why do people have to try and dictate how other’s live their lives? If you don’t like how your neighbor is doing something, then fine, but you don’t need to publicly bash or even worse, embarrass them.
I respect Cheryl’s decision, and I respect every other blogger who wants to voice their opinion, that’s fine, that’s cool. Everyone has different beliefs, but it’s sad to see a community that can come together and support one another turn around and rip each other to shreds over CLEANING PRODUCTS.
Cheryl, I’m happy for you! You’ve worked hard, you’ve shared your mission and opened the door to your life for so many to read along and become of your struggles and daily life – thank you. I don’t care what cleaning products you use.
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How does expressing concerns about toxins in a product get turned into dictating how others live their lives, publicly bashing them, embarrassing them and ripping each other to shreds?
We are all adults. We should be able to have a civil discussion about the pros and cons of P&G products and the pros and cons of their brand/blogger relationships, shouldn’t we?
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Something similar happened during a Johnson’s Baby event I went to. Tons of haters came out, attacking our tweets and J&J. Which was ironic because we were talking to a toxicologist at the time that was trying to educate us. Most of us just chose to ignore it and take the high ground. It is hard but try to not to engage them. It just fuels their fire.
Do try not to let it get to you. You don’t deserve this.
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Just in general. There will always be people who instead of having a civilized conversation or even debate turn to bashing or embarrassment.
It’s one thing to share your reasons and thought-process behind X decision, but it’s another to ambush a blog post, tweet, forum posting, etc with posts over and over.
If a mom wants advice, that’s another thing – she asks a question and expects information in return.
If i post that I’m concerned about my little ones being around chemical cleaning supplies, then it’s fine to share an opinion and resources but it’s another to say they should stop using X and X. Give resources but don’t tell someone what they should or shouldn’t do. Let them make their own decision.
I’m not saying anything directly TO anyone, I’m stating it in general.
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Mandi:
My perspective is that the P&G Moms were ambushing twitter with posts over and over about how great P&G is. Certainly their positive tweets about the company far outnumbered anything I had to share.
I also didn’t tell anyone which cleaning supplies to use. I simply shared what information I have about the dangers of some of P&G’s cleaning supplies, in the same way that the P&G moms were sharing the things they like about P&G’s products. If me sharing information about the dangers = telling them which cleaning supplies to use, then them talking about how great the products are must also = them telling me which products to use.
Maybe, maybe not. I guess it depends on who reads that tweet or blog post and their first reaction to it. If they think someone is trying to tell them what to do, they are going to believe just that. Others will read it as simply the sharing of information and be thankful for advocates.
I will not badmouth any blogger who wants to have a relationship with a brand – they know what they are doing and they know the heat that they can take from partnering with certain brands, it’s part of the business. Nothing can be all roses and unicorns!
To be honest, I “got rid of” of my chemical cleaning products, everything except Lysol wipes. Everything is sitting on the basement stairs. I mainly did it to limit what was under my kitchen sink after we put locks on all the cabinets. But I know friends and family still use P&G products, or store-brand and I don’t care. To each their own. I gained some cabinet space back and there’s less “What can we use to clean ____?”
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there will always be people who love to stir the pot and make noise, don’t let it get to you. I’m a P&G Mom like my mom was before me and I had all those products in my house long before their was a blogger program for it. Some people are into living naturally some aren’t. we should each get to choose our own path without chirping in eachothers ears about it. lol