The Doghouse and the gap between expectation and reality

This new video, The Doghouse, is sexist and consumeristic but funny as hell, so I had to post it anyway.

It would be a perfect viral video, but they don't provide tools to embed it on blogs or share on Facebook, etc.! Oh well, typical corporate America, at least they got it half right.

I don't want to totally spoil the video but it's a sly example of one of my favorite concepts, the gap between expectation and reality. As I write in Mojo Mom, often our reality is truly okay, but when life does not measure up to our expectations, we can feel miserable, out of control, or disappointed. This is a particularly potent dynamic in marriage and motherhood, especially when the whole world works to raise our expectations to ridiculously unattainable levels of perfection. If we judge ourselves by unrealistic standards, or take in too many marketing/media messages (such as wedding, celebrity, and pregnancy magazines), the gap between fantasy and reality sets us up for a hard fall back to Earth.

The Dog House video both sends up this process and reinforces it, which is why it's somewhat diabolical and extremely effective. It got to me, even as I was critically analyzing it!

My husband is very hard to buy Christmas presents for, mainly because he pretty much already has what he wants and needs. The other day he asked me to buy a Macintosh power adapter for him when I was placing an Apple order online, and at first I thought, "I can add this to his pile of Christmas gifts." But then I realized, then I'd deserve to be put in "The Doghouse!"

The search goes on....