My Fourth Annual Open Letter to the Morons at Pampers
Posted on 07. May, 2010 by Brian Reid.
Dear Pampers,
This evening, I received the following note from you:
Hello BRIAN,
Happy Mothers Day!
Thanks, Mom for all that you do.
On this special day, check out the tribute that Pampers has for you! Come join us and other moms on Facebook and YouTube, and take a moment to share what you love best about being a mother.
This is the fourth straight year that you’ve sent me a generic Mother’s Day message, despite the fact that I am — quite plainly — not a mom. Now, I have all the respect in the world for moms, and I salute you for saluting them, but let’s get one thing straight: not every person on your diaper-coupon mailing list is a mother. I’ve made the point in the past, and I don’t want to belabor it, but dads buy lots of diapers. And though we don’t make our purchases based on which company panders the most to fathers, a lot of the dads I know appreciate it when huge consumer-product giants at least suggest that maybe mom doesn’t do *all* of the heavy lifting when it comes to poop and pee.
Still, as this is my fourth posting on the subject, I am officially done with you people. I am boycotting Pampers until I receive proof positive that you’re no longer assuming that I’m a mom just because I like diaper coupons. I know that the fact my kids are out of diapers may blunt the impact of my protest, but it’s the thought that counts.
Happy Mother’s Day,
Brian
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Forget Avatar: Pre-Order “Evolution of Dad” *Now*
Posted on 01. May, 2010 by Brian Reid.
This has been a long time coming, but Dana Glazer’s documentary on modern fatherhood, “Evolution of Dad,” is now available for pre-order (it’ll be shipping on May 18).
Over the nearly 8 years that I’ve been writing this blog, there have been huge advances in the world of at-home dad media. We’ve had an explosion of websites. We’ve had some absolutely wonderful books (“The At-Home Dad Handbook,” “Daddy Shift”). Great newspaper pieces. At-home dads are now standard issue on prime-time ensemble family dramedies (“Parenthood,” “Desperate Housewives”). We’ve even had Eddie Murphy do the at-home dad thing (“Daddy Day Care”). But we’ve never had a breakout documentary on fathers.*
Until now. Evolution of Dad (see the trailer here) will be out later this month, and pre-orders will be accepted over the next two weeks. If you’re interested in checking it out, head over to evolutionofdad.com and buy a copy. It’s about 20 bucks, plus shipping, but if you put in the code REBEL400, they’ll knock 15 percent off during the pre-order period.**
* To be fair, there have been documentaries on at-home dads, notably Happy SAHD, but they haven’t had the audience that Evolution of Dad appears to have.
** In the interest of disclosure, I’m not getting anything by shilling for this film. I just believe deeply in what Dana is doing. The EvoDad people have let me take a look at the film, and I’ll be sure to put up that post later this month.
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Trey Wingo, Nail Polish and Dad Commercials
Posted on 29. Apr, 2010 by Brian Reid.
The government’s National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse has pushed out some absolutely brilliant PSAs urging men “to take time to be a dad.” The ads are old news, but I missed ‘em when they launched in October, and missed them again when Aaron Rochlen pointed them out to me earlier in the year, but they are worth watching if they’re new to you (and worth watching again if you’ve seen them before). There are five of them. I’ve posted my two favorites below, but check them all out and let me know which you like best.
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