Brooke Shields was a heartfelt recipient of an “attagirl!” from yours truly in 2005 when she took on heartthrob-turned-weirdo Tom Cruise in a very public battle over postpartum depression. She responded to Cruise’s flippant and idiotic “they should take vitamins and exercise” comment to Matt Lauer directly and eloquently in "War of Words," becoming a needed icon to destigmatize the many women that suffer from a completely treatable condition that threatens what should be one of the greatest moments in life.

Which is why it breaks my heart to now place Brooke in the “What was she thinking?!?!” category for her starring role in Volkswagen’s newest ad campaign unleashing their first minivan, the Routan. The campaign is based on the above mockumentary blaming the desirability of the Routan for a population boom “for the love of German engineering.” Ignoring the obvious historical insensitivity of that particular gem, the campaign overtly trivializes the decision to have a child by reducing its motivations to love of a car. All narrated by a woman who took on the world for not taking seriously the potential psychological side effects of that very decision. Obviously, it’s supposed to be a joke (though I don’t know where they found a test group that laughed), but it’s a slippery slope: is proposing Volkswagen interventions really so different than suggesting vitamins?