Firstly, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read this email. I sent it to everyone in my address book who lives in Guelph, has children, and who I know (to the best of my knowledge) in raising children in a gentle nature. My apologies if you did not want to receive this email.
This morning while riding on a Guelph Transit bus, my 4 yo son Sage became suddenly scared. “Mommy I’m scared” “of what” “Somebody’s going to hurt me if I ride on this bus. We have to pull the cord now, time to leave” “why ever would you think that?” “sombody will put a stick into my head and all my blood will come out and I will die. I want to go now, can we please leave?”
This was followed by the beginning of tears, and I looked in the direction Sage was looking, and saw what he was looking at.
An image on a poster on the bus. A drawing of a man with a metal pole stuck into his head, through one ear and out the other. Blood was dripping down the sides of his head and running out his nose.
On the way home, on another bus, there was an image of a bloodied ear, which had been torn from someone’s head, laying on the ground between a pair of sneakers, blood was also on the sneakers as though it had dripped there.
The ad campaign is aimed to prevent injury in the workplace. Apparently whomever approved this to be on public busses, didn’t take into account that ‘public’ is more than adults who are capable of reason. Public is children. Public is the mentally ill. Public is the mentally challenged. Not everyone can look at an image like this one without getting seriously frightened.
Now I’m all for safety in the workplace, who isn’t. But safety doesn’t have to come at the expense of children’s innocence. Surely there are other ways for the advertiser to get their message across.
I know for certain that I will be tending to my son during the night, as this image flashes thorugh his mind while he sleeps, causing some terror during the night.
I was absolutely appalled when I saw this, and confused as to how it landed on a bus. If these images were on a film, or on a video game, it would be rated “R” for graphical violence and contain a parental warning. Yet the eyes of very young children are being assaulted with these images as we speak.
As parents, we should have the right to decide when and if we want to allow our children to see things like this. I respect the rights of the artist to display their work, and of the advertising company to advertise, however they have not respected the rights of the public to choose to NOT see violence. A city bus is a public place, and so many children and adults ride on it not for fun, or by choice but out of necessity. A line needs to be drawn somewhere as to what is publically acceptable, and these images have definately crossed it.
Upon arrival home, I contacted Guelph Transit. They weren’t all too helpful. The receptionist informed me that the inside of the busses ad space was ‘owned’ by a company operating out of brantford. That they had no say in what is on there. I spoke with her supervisor at length, who did show some concern, but said that all she can do is ask the current shift supervisor to look into it and ‘see what he thought’ of the images.
I informed her that if I was riding with my child on a bus again, I would remove the poster myself. She recommended against that, stating that I ‘may’ be charged with vandalism if I did that, and its best to ‘let the proper channels handle it’.
Yet, children are still seeing this images.
When I got off the phone, I contacted the Guelph Mercury. I spoke to a man named Brian. He was very interested in this.
I’m hoping that the more people who can speak out about this as quickly as possible, the greater chance there is at getting the images removed promptly.
I don’t know how many parents are going to be answering questions about the images, but what really concerns me is the children of Guelph. Just how many of them will have fears and horrors surrounding these images? Its just not right.
So I’m asking you this.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.
If you have seen these images, or if this really concerns you as it does me, Call Guelph Transit at (519) 822-1811 and let them know the images bother you. Ask them to remove the images immediately.
If your child has seen these images while riding on the bus, and you feel that is an invasion of your child’s mental security..PLEASE contact the Guelph Mercury Newsroom at (519)822-4310 and ask to speak to Brian.
If you are riding on a bus, and you have a camera, take a picture of these images to forward to others so they can see the pertinence of removing them.
If this concerns you at all in any way….
Please please please pass this email along to any and all Guelph parents and citizens who support gentle parenting.
Together, citizens can effect rapid change.
Lets hope that together, we can get the word out, and get those pictures replaced with something more publically appropriate, which won’t cause mental terrors to children.
Thank you so much for reading this 🙂 HC
