Home Alone

I’ve just read OMD's research into Stay at Home Dad’s (The New Dad's Army, Marketing, 11 June 2008 also Brand Republic), and was pleasantly surprised to find an agency trying to shift attitudes towards that most entrenched of roles child raising. You see in four weeks (actually 3 weeks two days now – but who’s counting?) I will be swapping my mouse mat for nappy bag and changing mat to become a stay at home father (the very terms seems apologetic.).


Apparently one in 10 fathers are now looking after the kids… so apparently I’ll be in good company. And this means (according to OMD) that companies should consider targeting this lucrative and growing audience. Which is fair enough. What interests me is the type of communication we’ll start receiving.

New audience, new insights. I certainly don’t want to start being pushed nappies with my club colours on them (or maybe I do, my daughter after all already has the branded baby grows…). What I’m saying is that one of the big issues for me is lack of knowledge and companies pushing new products at me are just likely to get my hackles up. What I want is helpful communication, reasoned argument that, in the short term mean my choices won’t bring down the wrath of ‘her in the office’, but which in the long term will allow me to spend my time with my daughter in the most rewarding manner possible for us both.

So my pleas are threefold:
Can we see some more qualititative insight into stay at home fathers – presumably our needs are not all the same?
Could big companies develop communications over time that help me (us) make sense of what is currently an alien world.
And on a personal note, can anyone give me any guidance on what resources; blogs/websites/groups/whatever really exist to aid people like me.