Hello Everyone!
To start my part of the blog is an excerpt from an email I sent to Heather, which she was so tickled with she asked me to post it word for word. Some history: I work at Barnes & Noble and observe lots of moms with kids.
…yesterday every single kid that came into the store was screaming- not crying-just screaming. One mother with one of those huge strollers that holds like 3 kids, 10 drinks, coolers etc. came to check out. In her cup holder she had a venti iced coffee of some kind and all three kids were screaming. My thought was…if I had three screaming kids, coffee wouldn’t do it..I would want a bottle of vodka in my cupholder..hehe (not that I would drink and watch kids) But with all those features on the strollers to keep the kids entertained, where are the features for the tired moms?
…part two:
Anyways…you have a new fan. I was working in the newsstand and asked a woman if she needed help finding anything. She said “This is strange but I need a magazine on parenting where the family does not look like this (and she pointed to the perfectly dressed smiling family of four on another magazine).” Then she went on to describe how her family photos are put together (photoshopped) one smiling kid at a time. She said that she needed “a real magazine- because these people (the perfect family) are either on happy pills or being bribed with brownies to pose like that” lol. I showed her yours and she laughed so hard she almost cried. I told her to try that one. About an hour and a half later she was checking out with me..bought your magazine…and said that she would be reading it weekly until the next one came out “for sanity in knowing that other mothers were having the same thoughts as her.” I guess she was reading it over her coffee!
AMEN to the “where are the features for tired moms?” No doubt! We could get wicked creative with fun features for moms……..
I think we could put pressure on the bookstores to subdivide the categories into “real parenting” books and “Ideal” or “fantasy parenting.”