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Our new Graco stroller travel system arrived the other day and I couldn’t wait to get home from work to set it up. Why? Well, for one I love assembling and building things, and for two, I am incredibly excited about the forthcoming kid.
I walked out to get the box that was sitting on the front porch and as I leaned over to pick it up, I noticed the slogan on the side that said.
“Ask moms who know.”
I stopped for a second, a little surprised by this phrase. Are dads too stupid to know? Aren’t there any fathers or collective parents who know, or just moms? If this were on the side of a breast pump package or something clearly mom-oriented I could understand a clearly mother-oriented slogan, but a stroller seems relatively androgynous. Does being a mother provide special insight into the mechanics of well-built strollers before ever actually having used it?
In the process of writing this I Googled the slogan to see if it was on other products of theirs and found that apparently it is. I found this blog by someone who noticed the same thing. I love the caption of the Graco Pack ‘n Play on the post, “For moms who know, and the rest of you can go to hell.”
I’m surprised they haven’t adjusted it to reflect that modern fathers are very involved. Am I truly offended? No. Maybe a little irked that I dumped a couple hundred bucks on an item from a company that thinks I’m not quite all there. I can get that for free elsewhere. Just as long as the thing doesn’t collapse they could have scrawled personal insults on the box with a Sharpie and I’d still use it. I just find it interesting that in today’s politically correct world they would maintain a slogan that alienates dads.
The more I thought about it I began to question why they don’t have a child-oriented slogan in the first place. “For safe and happy kids” or some junk like that. They’re clearly pandering to moms.
The stroller isn’t for the parents, it’s for the kids. However, the parents are the ones who spend the money, so companies continue to sell the image of babies and parenting rather than focusing completely on product attributes.
Did you ever get a response on this?
I totally agree. I’ve been saying this for years. Ads that portray the father as the bumbling fool.
While I acknowledge that moms and dads typically have different roles in the house, that doesn’t justify the stereotyping of dads as the “idiot of the family.”
I’m 30 and I’ve noticed this stereotype happening my entire adult life.
1599 days ago
[...] while back I mentioned how I don’t care for the slogan on Graco products, “Ask moms who know.” A short while later I was contacted by the PR manager from Graco [...]
1653 days ago
[...] One of the posting-threads I picked up whilst reading was this story at Inside Fatherhood –“Graco thinks dads are stupid” [...]
1653 days ago
[...] short time after I wrote my recent post “Graco thinks dads are stupid” I was contacted by the Graco company. I must say I was a little surprised at first to hear [...]
Why can’t they say “ask parents who know” ??
1660 days ago
[...] wrote yesterday that Graco needs a smack in the head for their slogan. After I wrote that post, Bryan over at Sympathy Pain sent me a note saying that he thought the [...]
1661 days ago
[...] a different note, over at “Inside Fatherhood“, I have found someone who shares my views on Graco’s motto. Did You Enjoy this Post? [...]
I sent this leter to graco…with no response….http://www.sympathypain.com/to-whom-it-may-concern/
yeah.
In this world all the sexism is supposed to be against women – why is that so much of sexism seems to be directed against men? I personally hate it when people mistakenly think that the word ‘parent’ is synonymous with the word ‘mum’.
Sure, it’s a little thing – an image of a goofball dad on a dishwashing detergent ad who can’t work the dishwasher – compaired to the glass ceiling that women in previous decades used to face… but it’s there. It rankles me.