Playtex: Designed For Mom

Designed for Mom

Here's a part of my letter to Playtex:

I recently went with my wife and baby to Babies ‘R’ Us to buy a new cup. I found one of your cups (The Insulator) and read the back, to make sure it was BPA free. In the back, it said this cup was “Designed for Baby,” which means the baby will find it easy to hold and drink on his own. However, and this is the reason I write to you today, the following line said, “Designed for Mom.”

Now, as far as I know, I’m not a mother. And as your “Designed for Mom” section said nothing about breastfeeding, I assume you simply don’t want fathers to use this cup.

My wife followed me and pointed at the Playtex cup. “What about this one?” she said. I told her the reason we couldn’t buy this cup would be clear by looking at the back. “Why would they do that?” she asked me, immediately noticing the offensive writing.

Well, I didn’t have an answer. Maybe you do.

So on June 14th I got a letter back from Playtex Consumer Affairs. What was going to be inside? An explanation? Maybe even just them saying, "Women buy more baby stuff than men, so leave us alone." Anything would have been better than what I actually got:

Thank you for contacting us with your comments . . . We would like to assure you that your comments are important to us, and all of us . . . are continuously looking for ways to improve our products. . . . In appreciation of your time and effort in contacting us, please accept the enclosed coupon good toward your next purchase. . . . Thank you again for sharing your comments with us, and please feel free to contact us again.

Now, I know I skipped some parts, but trust me, a form letter is a form letter, and the skipped parts were just space fillers that said nothing about my original letter.

So thank you, Personal Care Representative Carol Crawford, for taking the time to put my name on the top of your form letter, and thank you for the $7.99 coupon, which--I assume--I'm now supposed to hand over to my wife.

29. Marty

The Napkin Dad Daily

They tell us it's all gonna change, so we fear for our creativity. Without free time, will our soul still have an outlet? Never mind the price of daycare--Can our soul really afford this baby?

Marty Coleman, like many others, has discovered his creativity later in life. I love his story:

The Napkin Dad Daily began as a series of drawings and quotes on napkins that I put in my daughters' lunches during their middle and high school years, most every day from 1998 -2004.

I started doing the napkins while I was unemployed and making their lunches for school. I did 3 a day, one for each daughter. After many months I felt sort of depressed because, as funny as it sounds, it was the my main creative outlet, the only artwork I was doing at the time, and they were all being thrown away every day. 'Oh well' I said, and went about doing them until the end of the year.

I'll stop there. But if you have a chance, read the rest of this story that has led Marty from depression to Time Magazine.

And as for me, sure, the baby needs me. And he's sure demanding. And even now, when he's asleep and I finally get my time for myself, I still type quietly. Still unable to forget myself in writing.

But he's also an inspiration. And he's a constant reminder, maybe because our eyes are similar, that the spark of creativity I had as a child is still there, waiting.

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Guest Post in the Baltimore Sun

Just a quick note.

I got an email on Tuesday from Kate, who writes a parenting blog in the Baltimore Sun website. She asked if I'd be interested in writing a guest post, and of course I said Yes. Now, it's not every day that you get to write a guest post, so naturally I couldn't limit myself to one subject. I had to get it all in.

Which means there's a paragraph about Nina from Sprout (nothing about Star. She's really too good for him).

And a paragraph about learning from my son.

And one about my son falling off his crib.

And one, of course, about 1-800-Flowers.

If you have a chance, visit the site and read the post, and even leave a comment as a Father's Day present for me. I don't care if you just say Hi or if say you completely disagree with me, and that Star is really the reason you watch Sprout. To each his own.

 

And just one more thing. On Tuesday, between 6pm and 9pm, Kate will be at the Windup Space in Station North for what the Sun is calling a Tweet-Up, which I assume is like a meet-up, only--I don't know. I don't get Twitter. So let's call it a meet-up. In the email, she writes, "We'd love to see you and other bloggers there, so spread the word!"

So if you're in Baltimore or around Baltimore, or not even near, but have access to a train or an airplane, I might see you Tuesday.

What to tell a pregnant woman who hates you because she's suffering and you're not

My wife didn't have an easy pregnancy. In fact, she had the most horrible time a human being can have, apparently. And just in case this pregnancy thing happen again, I need to remember to avoid saying, "I know how you feel." You've never seen rage until you've seen a woman who has been puking every day for 40 weeks and now the baby is feeling pretty comfortable where he is, thank you very much, for at least two more weeks, and her husband says, "I know how you feel." I swear, for a second, her eyes turned bright red.

Thankfully, we now have a study that will help us comfort the soon-to-be mothers.

Morning sickness linked to smarter babies | BabyCenter

Morning sickness linked to smarter babies

Children born to mothers who have morning sickness may be smarter than those whose moms don't have nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, suggests a new study.

28. Kevin

Always Home and Uncool

Ever since that whole parenting thing started, I've been noticing new things. And I'm not just talking about my baby pointing at a familiar tree and me realizing there's a bird's nest up there. No. What I mean in this case is prioritizing self-identity.

Even though I write a father blog here (and there), and even though I stay home with my baby, and even though I spend much of my day chasing him around with a spoon full of YoBaby, I consciously try to define myself in my own terms first, and in relation to my family second.

Kevin, at Always Home and Uncool, defines himself first by using the most undefinable phrase in the history of humanity: a Gen Xer. If I got anything by reading Douglas Coupland's book, Generation X, it's that Kevin and I are lost, but we get by. We even get by happily most of the time.

It's a funny blog for all Gen X fathers out there, who worry sometimes that they're supposed to give their kids some kind of direction, but knowing there's no one true way, settle on the next best thing: making sure their family is happy and that they're doing the best they can.

I know it sounds corny. But in our Gen X world, where everything is fake and ideologies are manufactured and then tossed away, our families' happiness is actually the one truth we can be sure of.

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This Mother's Day, skip 1-800-FLOWERS

Before it's too late, I wanted to share an email I got from a 1-800-flowers rep. It started like that (and I'll spare you the rest):

Hi, my name is Allison Blass and I wanted to drop you a note about something I’m working on for 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. They recently launched a new movement for Mother’s Day called Spot a Mom. The Spot A Mom movement celebrates all the unique types of Moms in the world.

Now, as long as we're talking about 1-800-flowers, let me just say that I will never buy anything from them, and I don't recommend anyone else does.

Last year they had a different Mother' Day campaign, which also included all the unique types of Moms in the world, one of which was this guy in the middle:

Mr. Mom

And if you hovered over that picture with your mouse, you'd have gotten this:

I'm fabulous!

So good for them for not including the fabulous fella in this year's collection of mothers, but they still haven't replied to the email I sent them last year, which means they haven't apologized yet to fathers who don't necessarily see themselves as fabulous or as "moms."

So Ms. Blass, thank you for your email, but I'm going to pass this year and the next. There are plenty of local flower stores that don't portray me as a stereotype of a fabulous fella called "Mr. Mom."

28 months

I was in the supermarket the other day, and a mother asked me "How old?"

"16 months," I said. "And how old is your boy?" I asked, because it's part of the protocol.

"28 months," she said.

Which got me thinking.

At what age can I stop doing the whole month-thing? 28 months seems excessive, to be honest. I actually had to do a little calculation when she said that.

So I told my wife about it, and she said we could probably tell people our son is a year and a half, even though he's only 16 months.

But that's a different problem, because we were in a restaurant, and a couple with a baby asked us The Question. My wife immediately jumped on the opportunity to say "A year and a half," and I immediately panicked, because now people were going to think he was slow to develop, maybe even say, "Ours talked a lot more when he was that age."

But that's what we do. We panic. We panic when we wait for the milestones, and we panic when the babies take their time reaching the milestone. And we panic when we compare our babies to other babies. And we're scared of the idea that someone might look at us and think, "That baby would have been better off with other parents."

Or maybe it's just first time parents.

Or maybe it's just me.