"Soccer Mom"

Yes I am going to tackle this one. I have listened quietly to the "soccer mom" being brought up in reference to design. I suppose as advertisers on their"station wagons", or supporters of "cult advertising". I have to say first for the "soccer mom" who has either sacrificed her career to stay at home and pull the equivalent of 2 full time jobs by raising children and keeping a house, or put her career and dreams on hold because her priority became her children. I have listened for four years now to negative commentary from young adults who are naive to the reality of raising children, what it takes etc... If you think college is hard, waite until you become a parent. I praise the woman who has time to be a soccer mom, and a supporter and advertiser of her kids and what they believe in, whether it be the pink ribbon on her car or the yellow one. Which if we were truly to read this "cult" of the yellow ribbon, it reads "Support our troops" not "support our War"!!! Possibly this "soccer mom", has a son or daughter in the war, or has lost a child in the war. My point with all of this is that maybe we as students and professionals , may have a tendency to criticize before we really get the message. We can be to ready to judge what is wrong with a design or trend, before we understand it, and I think that this is something we as designers should be conscious of and careful, because as designers we must learn to understand trends, reasons behind them, a multitude of audiences, and so on.