KFspleen

There's a tv advert for KFC that says for "more time with your little ones" as part of its sales pitch. What a load of hideous bollockry.

As I live rurally, getting a bucket (eurgh, I mean, really, are we farm animals?) would actually deprive me of time with my children, apart from that lovely quality time of them rowing in the backseats of the car, I suppose.

Of course, it's not aimed at me, but at KFC-local parents. Who presumably aren't supposed to realise that cooking a meal at home can be part of family life = time with the children.

I know I'm coming from a point of privilege here. I have a kitchen big enough to have the children in while I cook, and they can help me - or they can do their homework at the kitchen table, mmm, yum, semi-steamed spellings! I am also time-rich, if money-poor.

It's not even that I'm against the odd take-away or ready-meal. I'd love it if we could get pizza delivered here. As one of the main characters in Long Dark Teatime of the Soul yearns, there's nothing better than pizza hot from a box.

But for "more time with your little ones"? I don't like it. I think it speaks directly to the guilt complexes of working parents and the marketing industry's mythologising of cookery (where good food is hard to make and laborious, and takes you away from your family life. Sure, not everyone likes cooking, but it doesn't have to be difficult and it needn't be a hideous chore where you're locked away from your family).