This article that appeared in yesterday’s YPulse Daily Updates (a great source of youth culture information with free updates) highlights the ways marketers target moms and dads differently. Apparently marketers tend to make kids’ moms the primary target. This article talks about how dads are very influential in certain types of family purchases (i.e., those related to entertainment). Another article a few days ago talked about the influence of dads in kids’ food choices.

Reading these got me thinking: how should we think about partnering with kids’ moms differently than with kids’ dads? Believe me, the LAST thing I want to do is perpetuate stereotypes. I spend much of my life trying to counter certain stereotypes folks have of women in leadership, or of moms.

Nonetheless, it does seem wise in our efforts to partner with parents to think about if moms and dads would prefer different types of communication from us, or different modes of communication, or different topics of training. Maybe in your context, the needs and perspectives of moms and dads are so similar that it’s fine to just lump them together. But maybe in your context there are some differences worth teasing out.