Dear Parenting Magazine, I like your publication and we receive it at the Mojo house. After a year of reading it and getting some dandy ideas on meals that I can cook, development tips and relationship advice I realized that you have almost no pictures of dads in your magazine.
That’s cool. I don’t know your demographics, you do and must have derived that men don’t read the magazine. Both my wife and I read the magazine, as I’m sure that many couples do, especially stay at home dads. Even if I weren’t a stay at home dad I’d glance over the publication, just to see what I could learn or what to expect next about the growth and development of our child.
To be fair, I looked at all of the advertisements and articles over a two month period and everything that wasn’t related to children was about the wife. There was a photo in each issue where the father was caring for the child in an attentive manner. You also did not show any overtly negative images of dad, either being clueless or aloof.
I understand that wives drive most of the decisions about the home and child. According to the most recent statistics that I could find only 14% of men stay at home with the child. If you’re using that math, or even hedging it a bit higher, then you are merely catering to your audience.
Dads who stay at home understand this situation to an even lower percentage, i.e., being the only dad at story time or other day time functions. At a library function recently the facilitator was so used to saying “Hello Moms” that I just blended into the crowd of estrogen. At the end of that class she caught her mistake and said “Thanks for coming parents”. The second time she started the class with “Hello Moms.. and Dad”, to which I thanked her afterwards.
Stay at home dads have some nice online resources including Dad Labs, Man of the House, Dad to The Bone and thousands of great blogs to network and learn from. I don’t think that Parenting Magazine should change too much, but the occasional photo of a dad with their child, instead of the mom, would be nice.
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Thanks for the mention in your letter. I’ve started to see Parenting reach out to dads a little more, especially with their “sites we love bit” every few issues usually focusing on dad blogs. Everyone is working to carve out their niche … Heck that’s why we’re in the game too. Again, appreciate the shout out.
No worries Jeff. Man of the House does some super content. I hadn’t seen the “sites we love bit”, but I’ll look for it in the next couple of issues. Keep up the good work there.