Tag: kids

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The Greatest Risk of All: Losing Quality Time with Our Kids

As I work to support my wife and kids financially, and build a career for myself, I feel something far more important is slipping away.

I am lucky enough to spend time with my boys every day, but that time is filled with cooking and baths, cleaning up and getting them ready for bed. Lots of doing. There’s not much sit down and be in the moment play time with Max and Joss – and it’s breaking my heart.

Right now I’m working six days a week and there’s no guarantee that any of it will amount to anything more than next week’s paycheck. But what in life is a sure thing? Nothing is risk free.

And as my kids fight over toys and which video game they’re going to play with, they’re getting older. I find myself wishing that everything would just stop for a while and we could just play.

But that’s my choice, isn’t it? Sure, the kids have to cooperate and buy into it – but it’s my choice whether my next day off is filled with to dos, or time well spent with my family.

Have you spent a quality day with your kids lately?

And remember, you are not alone …

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Huggies Children’s Products: Shape Matters, Dads Don’t

In the May issue of Parenting Magazine, I found yet another ad from a major children’s company that excludes dads. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, especially since it’s an ad inside a magazine who’s cover tagline is “What Matters to Moms.”

The ad, which appears on page 54, is for an “easy-grip, no-slip bottle*” for bath time hair and body wash. You may be wondering what that little asterisk is for after the word bottle. Well, at the bottom of the ad Huggies tells you:

 “*Picked by moms for better no-slip grip.”

I’d like to meet the Huggies executive who signed off on this one. I’m just wondering what type of research the company did before deciding to make this claim. Did they get a bunch of moms together and ask them what they liked best?

Did they bother to ask these moms who gives the children most of their baths? Because I give both my boys ALL of their baths. Yes, I am Bath-man! Exclusive bath giver to my children (and myself), no matter how dirty or stinky! It gives me a little extra time with the kids, and it gives my wife a break because she works very hard to take care of us.

It’s funny, because every dad I know tells me the same thing. They are the ones giving the baths.

Here was a chance for Huggies to get it right. To give a nod to all the dads of the world who sacrifice time with their kids to go to work and earn money so their family can survive.

See, Mr. Huggies executive, the thing is that us dads also use this money to buy children’s products. Like bath soap for instance. I for one can say I won’t be buying yours.

And remember, you are not alone…