I'm not fighting Huggies alone

Two different alert readers sent me the link to this New York Times article about how fathers - especially "daddy bloggers" - really dislike being ridiculed in advertising.  The article focuses on a daddy blogger summit (Thanks for the invite!), but my readers forwarded the link because of Chris Routly's activist response to Huggies ads.  As you know, I've railed about Huggies pejorative depictions of incapable fathers here and here.  

It was bittersweet to find out that Mr. Routly had launched a change.org petition and gotten 1300 signatures and a meeting with Huggies ad execs. On the one hand, it was good to know I was not alone in hating that whole ad campaign.  On the other hand, I'd decided to launch here on Competent Parent a mancott of Huggies.  I was inspired by the girlcott launched several years ago by Pittsburgh teenagers against Abercrombie and Fitch.  I was inspired by Peter Chin, wife of a college singing group friend, whose change.org campaign got Apple to take down the very offensive Make Me Asian app.  But now that Mr. Routly has reached Huggies brass, there's no need for my mancott.

So, let me just take this chance to announce: THE MANCOTT AGAINST HUGGIES IS OVER.  YOU CAN GO BACK TO BUYING THEIR PRODUCTS, GENTS.
       

Sunday Haiku: Tradeoffs

Poetry doesn't
pay.  Contract murder bankrupts
my soul.  What to do?*


*This poem has no basis in my reality.  It came to me fully formed as a wacky idea for, say, a movie plot.  Starring, say, Luke Wilson and Zooey Deschanel.  No need to forward this link to any authorities. 

Better living through science

Nice job, Western civilization.  It only took how many thousand years to come up with these easy open cereal bags?

This competent parent attests: they are easy to open.

Now if we could get the good people of Kellogg's to infiltrate Trader Joe's and work on the bags in their boxes of woven wheat crackers (Triscuit(tm) knockoffs).