Caffeine and Kids

It is always fascinating to see how attitudes and social norms have evolved  over the years by looking at old ads and the attitudes underlying them.

Sanka Coffee, for instance, was quite comfortable in its day with racism and ethnic stereotyping...

(Click on pics to enlarge).

What is of special interest is the 1950's Sanka ads which attributed child abuse to caffeine.  Switch brands to a coffee without caffeine and quicker than you can say Department of Human Services (formerly DOCS) Daddy stops beating the kids...

The captions below the various pics in the ad above, including  a pun about the child abuse in the first line, read:

Has his old man been hitting the coffee again?

1. Nervous father . . . boyish prank . . . flaring temper – and BANG! That’s a sequence that happens too often – when a parent is tense, on edge . . .

2. Frequently – back of that edginess is the caffeine in coffee. For many men and women, caffeine results in sleepless nights and high-strung days!

3. What’s to be done? Should you cut down on coffee – swear off entrirely? Or is it true that what people who have switched to Sanka Coffee say?

4. Every word’s true! Sanka is real coffee – all coffee. It can’t get on your nerves or keep you awake. Try delicious Sanka Coffee today!

Quite apart from the pseudo diagnostic explanations and the cavalier attitude towards hitting children, the ad should also be condemned for excessive use of full stops, dashes and exclamation marks.

Once the caffeine is eliminated, Daddy will no longer smash bubby's  toys and need to be locked up by Mummy...