Open Letter To:
Macy’s Federated Stores
-- AND --
The Hershey’s Chocolate Company
From: P.O’ed GrandPa
Subject: Inappropriate Children’s Clothes
Dear Sir(s) (because I’m sure a woman wouldn’t be responsible for this)
My wife and I recently visited a Macy’s store in one of the local Malls here in town. We were dismayed to see a T-Shirt (see attached photos) in the girls section of the children’s dept.
Let me repeat that…in the CHILDREN’S department.
While I’m fully aware that the Hershey Chocolate Company makes a fine product in Reese’s Milk Chocolate, the slogan “2 PEANUT BUTTER CUPS” is totally inappropriate to be displayed on a little girl’s shirt.
I am addressing this complaint to both companies in case I get the “It’s the other guy’s fault” excuse.
To Hershey’s Corp: You should know better. If you don’t then hire a “mom” to review your children sized appropriate promotional apparel to maybe veto certain age inappropriate products.
To Macy’s Corp: I thought you had better class than promote debasing children. When I went back to your store with my camera, I was questioned by the dept. manager about why I was taking photos of this particular product and cautioned that I’d need the store manager’s permission.
Instead, I asked her if she thought there was anything offensive about the shirt in question.
Her response was: “I wouldn’t let my little girl wear it…” and allowed me to leave without further comment. She even suggested I should swing by the “juniors” dept on the way out implying I’d find even worse examples of the same.
Since neither company lists a public email address, I’ll send you guys a link to this message (with photos) while awaiting, hopefully, a positive response result.
17 comments:
Erin,
I'm not shocked that this stuff exists. I've seen my share of this classless stuff in the classroom also.
But these two companies claim to have a reputation to protect. I suspect the makers of similar non-famous clothing items don't care much about the reputation as long as the stuff sells.
Parents that allow their kids to wear this stuff either shouldn't be allowed to breed or don't have much of a spine to say "No" to their kid.
...Mark
Love the fact that your blog now has a bunch of ads for Hershey on it....
Yeah, when I first read this, I thought of the shorts and sweat pants that read, "Juicy" which I find really disgusting, for more than one reason. And I think I've heard that there are T-shirts for little girls that read, "Daddy's little porn star."
I'm kind of glad we went to a dress code this year...
Our students push the envelope every day with stuff like this. It's a constant battle to get them to ditch the inappropriate clothing.
Gotta start grooming those girls for a Hooters job someday. AND you know these types of clothing end up on kids at the elementary level too!
Danemom -> Ironic isn't it. Hope it gets Hershey's notice that they're paying for this publicity.
Mr.Teacher -> I still believe the majority of parents are smart enough to know better. It's the clueless minority that seem to need the education.
Fred -> yep!
MFC -> Sad...
The bottom line in this, is profit for those corporations who push such clothing.....another way to make a few more bucks to add to their CEO's multi-million dollar annual salary and benefits package.
Secondly, It shows there is a real lack of parenting or of parents who have the basic moral values to see that such clothing is not appropriate for their child and apparently lack the parental skills to say "NO" to their child.
And the companies that market this crap to our youth are preditors.
Sometimes, though, it's a lack of reading comprehension and understanding of context. "Juicy" as applied to a sticker on fruit is good; "juicy" as applied to your nine-year-old daughter's rear end is bad.
Very ironic that I read this after going through last year's yearbook. I noticed one of my 7th grade girls was wearing a t-shirt which stated "The Other Woman". Good thing I didn't see that t-shirt in class. Who lets their daughter out of the house wearing stuff like this?
Can we lump all the Bratz line of toys with this sort of thing? Those things are like child prostitute action figures.
You don't think about this stuff till someone brings it to your attention. Thanks for doing that.
Am I the only one who thinks this reaction is a little overboard? I didn't even THINK to make the association between the 'two peanut butter cups' which is printed exactly the same way on every standard wrapper of Reese's in the US with a potential reference to breasts. Maybe it's a little unfortunate that that part of the label rests on that particular part of the anatomy, but only someone stretching their imagination could think it was referencing a child's breasts or nipples.
And you can complain all you want about 'the way kids dress today', but I'm sorry, when I watch 40-year-old 'Three's Company' and see how tight and bikini-length Chrissy and Terri's hot pants were, I think, you've gotta be kidding. That was on almost forty years ago and people think today's younger generation dresses oddly?
Sorry. It was thirty years ago, not forty.
Reply to Carmen:
See the comment above from "MellowOut" to see the difference.
I would have the same reaction to "Banana Republic" plastered on the front of boys shorts.
It's all in the context...
Nice blog. People using the different T-shirts as their ages like seniors and juniors. Check here the new collection of T-shirts
Nice post.
nice
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