I’ve been seeing this commercial on television lately that drives me nuts. I know, that doesn’t exactly narrow it down, so let me be a little more specific. Here’s the ad in question:

What’s wrong with this picture? A few things. First of all, that girl’s what, eleven or twelve? Maybe thirteen? She’s more than old enough to go shopping in a friendly public place with her friends without a parent following them around. Why the fuck does her mother need a GPS-style locator at the fucking mall?! Cripes, woman, give your kid some goddamned space. A mall’s patrolled by security guards, if you’re that anal retentive about your kid’s safety. And furthermore, the voiceover claims that this situation is when locating family members “matters most.” Um, no. I’d think finding missing loved ones after a natural disaster would be a bit more important, wouldn’t you? This is part of a national obsession with overprotecting children, and it pisses me off to no end.

If you need a damned GPS to track your kids’ movements, then you shouldn’t be having kids in the first place. Your paranoia has reached the point where it’s eating itself. You know what an appropriate use of those locators is? Tagging criminals who are a flight risk. Cut the kids some slack. If you know anyone who indulges in this kind of ridiculous behavior, you’re legally obligated to kick their ass. (I also think they should be sterilized and have their current brood taken away from them, for their own sake. What? Too extreme?)

As far as this ad is concerned, I bet the kid grows up to be a crack whore due to mommy’s overprotectiveness. “I’ll show you!”