Taking Parenting Tips from a Mad Man

Break out the Lucky Strikes, Utz chips and Popsicles! Following a year and a half hiatus, Mad Men returns to AMC this Sunday and a country of Jon Hamm fanatics swoon.

After working in the ad world for 10 years – juggling the late nights, the multiple projects and the demanding clients –  I feel the employees of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and I are kindred spirits. For this reason, I’ve noticed a handful of advertising principles they’ve employed which can actually prepare moms and dads for the parenting world as well.

And none of them, I assure you, include insights from Betty Draper. She was too busy smoking and looking constipated to offer any tips.

Work like an account executive. If you’ve watched Mad Men, you know Roger and Pete are in charge of schmoozing the clients – taking them out for three-hour lunches, buying them theater tickets and leading them into the strip clubs – while Peggy, Sal and the other creatives are back at the office churning out taglines.

When life gets overwhelming, put the grunt work on someone else so you can spend time concentrating on your client – or in this case, your kids. If a last-minute bake sale calls for a homemade goody, pick up something at the local bakery instead of staying up all night. Need a costume for school but stressed about sewing? Turn to Etsy. Heck, let the laundry go for a couple of days and then bribe your husband to do it. Your kids – like the Sterling Cooper clients – just really want some one-on-one face time to reassure them how special they are.

Create a masterpiece. Now throw it out the window. When I was a 1990’s Peggy, I spent many late nights in the office with the art directors, clawing my eyes out and begging God to bestow the world’s catchiest ad copy in my brain. In the morning, we’d emerge with beautifully mounted ads to pitch the client, only to be told to scrap it all because “instead of targeting Fortune 500 executives like we’ve told you for four months, we’ve decided to go after hipster kittens.”

Kids do the same thing. My friend recently stayed up all night sewing the world’s cutest Cat in the Hat costume, but was then informed by her four-year-old in the morning that she really wanted to be Cindy Lou Who. Or my kid who complained about a three-course meal I spent hours cooking and ended up sneaking Lunchables out of the fridge.

Copywriting and parenting can both be thankless jobs, and you just have to roll with the punches. The one benefit of parenting is you can send your children to their rooms. Actual clients tend to frown on being grounded.

Seize on the benefits of creative messaging. With his impeccable style and cool demeanor, Don Draper can sell anything to anyone. Just watch his tear-inducing Kodak Carousel pitch and you’ll want to ditch your iPhone for a slide projector.

Yet, in a head-to-head competition, a mom can out-pitch Don any day. A mom knows how to incorporate marketing tactics in order to maintain control in a world of kid chaos. One might call it “bribery” or “lying” – I call it “creative messaging.” It’s why my mom snuck Aldi’s snack cakes in an old Ding Dongs box when we complained she bought the cheap brands. It’s why I promise my kids a trip to the Edwardsville Zoo to keep them quiet while running errands, and why I penned a note from Tinker Bell, telling them how eating broccoli gives fairies their wings.

Preschoolers are easy-going and impressionable – take advantage of their naivety to get through your day. When they’re 10, they’ll start questioning you.

Party like a 1960’s era media buyer. While watching Mad Men, so many of my non-advertising friends have remarked, “Can you imagine drinking at work like they did?” Uh, yeah, because I did it. I’ve worked at a couple of agencies that were as Scotch-soaked and rumor-ridden as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, the only differences being that there was no smoking in the meeting room and the art directors would never be caught dead in a suit.

Parents’ lives are just as wild as the account executives on Mad Men. Like them, we turn to our vices to get through the day, whether we’ve been up all night or struggling to get through a mountain of projects. Only our three-martini lunch consists of Starbucks espresso and Uncrustables and our decanter is full of Reese’s Pieces instead of gin. If you could travel inside my head and see my non-Nickelodeon approved thoughts about Shout from Fresh Beat Band, you would leave as scandalized as you would after a Sterling Cooper holiday party.

Our beloved vices may be toned down, but we can still raise hell like an account executive. Or fall asleep with our head on our desk at 1 a.m. like an art director.

On Sunday night, instead of seeking advice from Don and Betty (really, don’t), watch the Mad Men at work to see how their marketing tactics can be incorporated into your own parenting strategy. The season premiere launches at 8 p.m. CST on AMC.

By Nicole Plegge, Lifestyle Blogger for SmartParenting

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