Don't take this personally, JC

For some reason, this ad just struck me the wrong way.

It is a full page JCPenney ad on the back page of Section A of today's Dallas Morning News and it's for some kind of cooking collection (I have already disposed of today's paper so pardon me if certain specifics escape me). This particular cooking collection included a mixer (not a hand-held one but one of those counter models that come complete with its own bowls), cupcake tins and a cookie sheet, both of which were touted as being non-stick.

No problem with that. My problem was that standing at the kitchen counter behind this assemblage of products were two models, a woman wearing an apron and a young girl, obviously depicting Mrs. Lovely Homemaker and her Darling Daughter.

And it just struck me the wrong way.

The first thought that jumped out at me is that why did JCPenny just naturally go with the safe model choices--a slightly-less-than-middle-age blonde white woman and the wholesome looking pre-teen female. Why is it that it's always the women who are in the kitchen?

I remembered back to the days shortly after my divorce when my ex had moved to San Francisco and my son, who was about 2 at the time, and I were living in this wonderful Lakewood duplex. Our resources weren't great, but, dammit, we had great times together. One of the things we really enjoyed was making and baking cakes, specifically layer cakes. I vividly remember my son sitting on the counter top in the kitchen anxiously waiting for me to finish mixing and applying the frosting so that he could lick the mixer blades and bowl remnants. Even now, after all these years, I can recall the excited, glorious look of anticipation on his face as we baked a cake together. Those were some wonderful times.

Things have a way of coming around and the joining back at the beginning. Now my son is raising a daughter. She's 2. And often when I come home in the evening, the two of them are in the kitchen. He's cooking and she's sitting on the counter, laughing and helping her dad, and I look at her and see my the face of my son from a quarter of a century earlier.

So pardon me, JCPenney, but I want to tell you that not all homemakers are women and I'm betting there are a lot of women out there who resent being automatically stereotyped as homemakers. I'm undoubtedly making a lot more out of this than I should, but that ad just struck me the wrong way.