Amazon.com Dads Are Fighting Mad: Here’s Why

Parenting in the 21st century looks quite different from, say, the 1950s. Gone are the Donna Reed parenting days.

So, naming a program aimed at helping parents, Amazon Mom, is seen as a slap in the face to many dads who take an active role in raising their families. Now some of those dads are mad, and they’re taking their fight to Amazon.

More than 6,000 people have signed a petition on Change.org, asking that Amazon change the name of the U.S. version of its Amazon Mom program to Amazon Family.

The Amazon Mom program, which provides discounts on diapers and wipes and other child products, as well as recommendations and other helpful information to parents, is already named Amazon Family in the United Kingdom and Canada, among other countries, Today contributor Carter Gaddis reports.

“Amazon Mom is open to anyone, whether you’re a mom, dad, grandparent, or caretaker,” Amazon explains on the program page.

So, if the program is open to anyone, why call it Amazon Mom?

“I appreciate being able to save money through the Amazon Moms discount program, I don’t like the message Amazon is sending by reinforcing a stereotype that doesn’t apply to my family, or plenty of others,” Change.org petition founder Jeffrey Harrington said.

The campaign, which actually started three years ago, is gaining some steam now, after Oren Miller, an early advocate of the Amazon Mom name change, recently died of lung cancer, Today said. Miller wrote on his blog in 2013:

It’s not about a name and it’s not about me personally being offended. … It’s about a company that looks at the U.S., then looks at England, and then decides that over there, parent equals mom or dad, while here, well, we’re not ready for that yet.

Gaddis said renaming the program is not only a way to honor Miller’s memory, it’s also an acknowledgement that times have changed.

This is not a case of dads versus moms. We’re not angry. We’re baffled, frankly, because most of us believe that Amazon is better than this.

It’s about inclusion. It’s about the gay dads who have had to endure a lifetime of inflammatory or exclusionary language. It’s about grandparents who are primary caretakers for their grandkids. It’s about single or stay-at-home dads who actually make the purchasing decisions in their homes.

This seems like a no-brainer for Amazon and an easy request to grant. I signed the petition. I love the Amazon Mom program. It seems that renaming it Amazon Family would be a truer representation of the program.

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