In recent years we have seen the tide turning in favour of fathers being viewed as equal to mothers. In days gone by men did not attend the birth of their children or were labelled the ‘babysitters’.
We are seeing an increasing number of public men’s toilets having baby changing facilities, shared paternity leave, and employers offering flexible working for not just mothers but fathers too. Traditionally the mother would give up work to stay at home with the baby, but more fathers are staying at home in their partner’s place or splitting the leave into halves.
However, as one father points out there is still progress to be made.
'Somewhat perplexed'
Dave Derby a single dad from Berkshire has said that he was ‘somewhat perplexed’, in the way the retail giant Superdrug promotes their parents section on the website. Initially unable to find it, he realised that all parenting items he required were labelled under the ‘mother and baby’ section. He went on to say that this was ‘derogatory to fathers’.
We live in a time where a mum, dad and 2.4 children are not necessarily the norm, single fathers, single mothers, gay parents are all considered part of a modern family set up now. The mother and baby phrasing are inadequate and archaic when it comes to labelling parenting sections intended for all.
On January 13 Dave took to Facebook to pen a post to bring the issue to the attention of Superdrug. He called for the retailer to rename the mother and baby section to ‘parent and baby’. He said that this would show the retailer view both mothers and fathers as equals.
Customer services
First, Dave received your standard run of the mill response from customer services thanking him for his feedback.
He then received a further reply from Superdrug to say that after discussing this with their web team they will be updating that section of the website.
The update promises to be more inclusive and will go live February 20, 2018. They have asked Dave to review this and let them know what he thinks of the changes.
It seems that not everyone was happy with the response with some mothers saying on social media that some products are only meant for mothers such as maternity and breast pads and nipple cream and should be labelled accordingly.
Dave spoke to The Huffington Post UK, and he advised that he assumes that the name will change to ‘baby and child’, and within this, there can be a ‘new mum’ section to cater to the female products. He added that regular baby and children’s items such as nappies should not be gendered towards parents.
Social media is awash with some advocates promoting equality between parents and showing support and encouragement for other dads. Some of the biggest parent bloggers are fathers, such as The Dad Network who has over 36,000 likes on Facebook, Simon Hooper aka Father of Daughters, Matt aka Papa Pukka, Tom Fletcher and The DADult Life all share their fathering exploits online with their thousands of followers.
We will need to wait until February to see if Dave and the other dads are happy with the rebrand and if this is a sign of change in favour of parenting equality.
