It seems unbelievable that a major company like Amazon still calls their parenting reward programs as Amazon Mom instead of something inclusive of other parents. This is an issue that Oren Miller, of A Blogger and A Father and founder of the Dad Bloggers Facebook group, brought up two years ago with Amazon and has gained traction in recent days, since his recent death from stage 4 lung cancer.
The funny thing is, as Miller pointed out over two years ago, Amazon already knows. In countries outside the U.S., the reward program is known as Amazon Family, not Amazon Mom. Oren wondered, “Why are we OK with letting England be more progressive than we are here when it comes to fatherhood? They have a queen! They are ruled by a freakin’ queen! We can do better than that!” We should do better than that.
Many companies and advertisers are moving in the right direction. We saw it in ad after ad at the Super Bowl this year, which portrayed dads as real parents, not as the bumbling idiot who treats his wife like a second mother. What’s more, families come in all stripes and not all of them include moms: single dads, gay dads, grandparents, stepparents, and foster parents are all presumably amazon purchasing parents — to name a few.
This issue even adversely affects the moms the Amazon rewards program is named after. When mothers are treated as the only competent parent in the house, fathers get a pass.. Valuing fathers helps men and women; by raising our expectations of what men are capable of, more is demanded of them and women become less burdened.
The Dad Blogger group that Miller founded is honoring his memory by taking up where he left off, mounting a major social media campaign with the hashtag #AmazonFamilyUS and urging their readers and followers to sign a petition to change the name of Amazon Mom to Amazon Family.
More Like This:
9 Things Stay At Home Dads Wish You'd Know
Beginning Again with a Third Kid
20 Teen Texting Abbreviations Every Parent Should Know