No disagreement, sir. Just wanted to ensure the readers had the marketing decision side of the aisle fodder to think about, too. It’s easy to read your post and (rightfully) think, “Yeah! I’m a dad and I matter, too!” But then we start acting like the faction of mommy bloggers that are whiny and nuts. (Little sarcasm mixed in there, of course .. heh.)

It would be smarter to include fathers. No doubt.

I’ve been saying this for years. It’s very frustrating.

Interesting that today’s society is advanced and accepts the IDEA of new parenting roles, but Marketing is still back in the 50′s!

I guess C.C. is really asking us to answer the question: WHAT IS A MOM, WHAT IS A DAD? and what’s the difference?

I’m just glad that we’ve gone up the scale from “WEEK-END, or DEADBEAT”

I was raised by my mother and grandmother, with three sisters and no brothers. I am now married with two daughters, two bitch dogs and a live-in mother in-law. I’m lucky to even have a penis, but you know what? My daughters love me in ways that they don’t love anyone else. Not because I have a penis, but because I am a man with callouses on my hands and gruff on my face and yet softness in my heart. Gender is a strange delineator. There’s a lot we can learn from each other – still.

Right on, C.C.! And both men and women will benefit once advertisers let go of outdated notions about parenting roles. I blogged recently about how moms are in the workforce like never before — with the same % of women working regardless of whether they had children or not (excluding infants)– yet advertising always depicts the Stay-at-Home-Mom, both visually and in copy. Keep the bullhorn on, C.C. We need to spread the word that parenting is genderless.

Last summer a few dads and I got our BOB strollers and our kids and went running each Sunday am. All the other Moms out there would “Woot” at us as if what we were doing was curing Cancer. I loved the attention, but I was not doing anything special. Just being a parent. Being involved.

I’m a single mum and my brother was divorced and had custody of his daughter. From when she was conceived all he thought about was being a good dad. Our father died when he was 6 years old. Not having the father image to grow up with was missing all his life. Being a dad was the proudest time of his life, he was consumed by his daughter his wife wasn’t the motherly type, so left her daughter in day care and took of interstate with a trucker. After divorce he raised his daughter and became Mr. Mum. That child never missed out on anything from 2 aunties and her dad she survived and did very well. My brother joined a support group in Australia for dads and became very active in that. He became a grandfather and mainly did the same to assist his single daughter to be a good mum. So today its not whats between your legs that makes a person a godd mum or dad its whats in the other end – the Head and heart. Good luck to all those dads they deserve the recongnition they souley deserve!

I agree with you! The worst thing I have been called is Mr. Mom. I scold everyone that calls me that. I am, as you said, a Man! I was also given a hard time regarding staying home with the kids and taking care of the house by my friends.

I think that they are over it now and can see that just because I am not going to a JOB that my work is hard and takes all of the organization and effort that their jobs do!

Talk to you soon!

SparkDad
http://www.sparkdad.com

CC I think you make an excellent point. We are a different generation and we are Dads and We are Here. It’s foolish for companies to ignor it. Even if mom’s control the checkbook for many purchases, we are the ones that tend to make or finalize the big purchases decision. We also are active in our kids lives. In a Survey I’m conducting at TheDADvocateProject.com Dads are spending on average 3 hrs per weekday and 8-12 hrs per day on weekends with their kids. We are there and active.

I look forward to getting to know you and the other DigitalDads better over the comming months.

As I was reading this post, I was thinking that it sounded just like CC. And so it was. =}

I have mixed feelings on this topic. On the one hand, women have been marginalized for generations and are only starting to get equal treatment. And, although you were welcome to attend the Disney conference, you weren’t really invited (you requested an invitation) and it’s not necessarily geared toward you. It seems a bit petty to complain that it’s not all about you (as a man), when that’s so often the norm.

On the other hand, I think men need to step it up in the parenting department (and women need to let them). And when you do (as you obviously are), you should be treated equally with moms. I am most certainly an advocate for equal/shared parenting.

In the end, I think there is a much bigger issue at play. How many of you assumed that your wife would take your last name when you got married? Did you know that men have to pay to have their names changed, where women don’t? How many men step back to let their wife parent, only “helping out” by “babysitting” now and again? Are you out advocating for better policies in office settings so that women who take time off to have a baby aren’t penalized? The world is not a “fair” place. And, while I think it should be, I think we have much bigger battles to fight than the inclusion of dads in an event geared towards women.

I’ve said this to you before, and I’m saying it again. Get over it and go where you want to go. By joining in groups and showing that you bring something important to the table, you’ll enact change. It’s what women have had to do for centuries and I can’t feel all that bad that men are now learning how that feels. If we had all done what you’re doing now (“I won’t go if it doesn’t say ‘Dads’ in the title”), we wouldn’t be able to vote or get a job today.

And this is, of course, coming from someone who changed the name of my parenting group (still in the works) to be more inclusive specifically because I knew that you would refuse to join otherwise…

Nicely put. I don’t think its too much to ask to be acknowledged as a seperate group, with different interests. Maybe its this millennium’s “equal rights” show down? =)

It’s a great point and the funny thing is, I just had a similar reaction because our town library’s only Saturday programs are ‘Dad and me’ events… with the implicit assumption that moms can make the ‘normal’ programs during the week. There are still SO many events planned and scheduled around ‘traditional’ roles and schedules and yet… I don’t know too many people for whom that works any longer, for Dad or Mom.