Saturday, November 01, 2003

The trend-spotters overseas are beginning to pay more notice to at-home dads. Today, the Guardian has an overview of how the old-school mum-at-home, dad-at-work family could be a "thing of the past". The story bounces around a bit, but it did have one detail I had missed -- a legislative effort in the UK to allow two weeks of paid paternity leave. Two weeks ain't that long, but it would be almost unthinkably better than what we have here ...

My Parenting magazine subscription finally seems to have lapsed, and I don't think I'll re-subscribe. I borrowed a couple of copies of its rival, Parents, and I didn't have to look hard to feel excluded. On the October cover: "Mommy It Hurts: How to Tell Real Aches from Fakes." On the Novemer cover: "Organizing Ideas for Really Busy Moms." Nice work from the self-proclaimed "#1 Family Magazine." Family? Aren't there dads in most families? I saw marketing research for Child magazine bragging that its readership was 87 percent female. Assuming all the kid-raising mags have similar demographics, is it a good marketing idea to alienate 13 percent of your readers? I have a sinking feeling that my answer to that question doesn't track with what magazine execs think ...

At-home dad and inventor Robert Klick gets more good press. (I mentioned yesterday how he won Oprah's Million Dollar Idea Challenge on Thursday. He's in the Hall of Fame now ... And while we're talking at-home dads and Oprah, househusband/goofball Joe Mozian gets more good PR from Oprah on Friday's show (Joe has apparently lost lots and lots of weight. Go Joe! Two at-home dads in two days ... maybe we are taking over.

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