Both kids were sick all week. No fevers or flu, just leaky faces and cranky, needy babies. With temperatures well below freezing there was also a lot of time spent inside, doing the complete opposite of everything I preached last week about getting out of the house. There is a direct causal relationship between the two things, this I know.
Knit hat credit: Aunt Q
We ventured out into the snow yesterday.
It was a trip that lasted maybe fifteen minutes. Right now, Loren’s favorite thing about snow is eating snow, and you can’t do that while wearing mittens apparently. In no time Loren was crying, his hands were beet red and freezing.
So we went back inside.
And Loren was all, “Dude…”
“…it’s really cold outside, and me and Roosie are totally sick. What kind of parent are you? Have you seen Missy Moo?”
So I went and checked on Ruthie, who was thawing out in the other room.
And she was all, “Uhhhhmm…”
“…we should probably talk…”
“….this won’t be easy, I…uhhhmm…”
“…well, you see, we’re sick and you brought us out into the cold snow and now, uhhhmm….”
“…oop, never mind I found my tongue.”
Ruthie is the chill one. I knew I could count on her to cut me some slack.
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There has been a lot of online buzz about stay-at-home dads this week. The Journal of Consumer Research came out with an interesting study regarding stay-at-home dads and their desire to be taken seriously in the marketplace, noting some differences between stay-at-home moms and dads along the way, and giving pointed advice to companies that seek our (baby-mama-earned) dollars:
“Stay-at-home fathers aggressively pursue recognition by and acceptance from mainstream institutions, with a particular emphasis on the mass market and iconic household and family-oriented brands. Accordingly, they vigilantly watch for mass media representations and advertisements that positively acknowledge their collective identity,” write authors Gokcen Coskuner-Balli (Chapman University) and Craig J. Thompson (University of Wisconsin, Madison).
Almost on cue, The Wall Street Journal published a post that helped keep the buzz alive, ostensibly citing the study, but really just blatantly employing the marketing tactics the study endorses.
Every line in the article – maybe I should be calling it an advertorial? – wants you to know that stay-at-home dads are…cool. And fun and wacky. They are breaking the mold of stay-at-home parenting. Maybe they let their kids jump in puddles when they go outside, and that’s cool too. They don’t do routines, instead they do adventure. And stay-at-home dads [insert positive acknowledgement of their collective identity here]…
Don’t get me wrong: I ate it up – every last word. And frankly, I saw a lot of what I do as a stay-at-home dad reflected in the paragraphs it dedicated to my brethren. It’s just that, in citing the “consumer research” study right off the bat, the one that says “here’s how to make your brand attractive to stay-at-home dads,” and then doing exactly that in the following paragraphs, well, I had a hard time reading the article without a heavy veil of cynicism. Suddenly it’s Sunday, I’m watching football, and another truck commercial comes on the TV telling me how much of a rugged individual I am and how this 4×4 will enhance the manliness of my man-sculinity, toughness, Tool Time, Tim Taylor, macho, man stuff.
It was all just a little too obvious.
The article could have regained some credibility if it had mentioned the main purpose of the Consumer Research study (i.e. how to sell to stay-at-home dads by affirming and congratulating their unique parenting styles), but I guess the article just got a little too caught up in the coolness of stay-at-home dads, and left it out.
Can you blame them?
I mean, you are reading a blog about one very cool stay-at-home dad…
