Kimberly-Clark Reaches Out to Moms

Kimberly-Clark’s Huggies and Pull-Ups are the brands behind a company initiative launched this week to cull and celebrate the best of Hispanic parenting and consejos (advice).

Dubbed “De mama a mama” (“Mom to mom”), the program aims to generate parenting tips, traditions and advice from Hispanic mothers that will be shared and passed along to new and expectant Latina mothers via a book of culturally focused parenting advice.

Moms with sage advice to bestow on moms-to-be can share their road-tested tips for good parenting at HuggiesEnEspanol.com and PullUpsEnEspanol.com and view thoughts from fellow contributors.

Filed under: families, Hispanics, kids, Moms, social networking

Twitter From the Cradle

It’s Social Networking for Babies – Twitter From the Cradle – NYTimes.com

Call it convenient. Call it baby overshare. But a host of new sites, including Totspot, Odadeo, Lil’Grams and Kidmondo, now offer parents a chance to forgo the e-mail blasts of, say, their newborn’s first trip home and instead invite friends and family to join and contribute to a network geared to connecting them to the baby in their lives.

Filed under: families, kids, social networking, Twitter

Big-Spending Boomers Buy for Multiple Generations

Big-Spending Boomers Buy for Multiple Generations – MarketingVOX

Consumers in their 40s and 50s are at or near the peak of their earning
potential. They also make the majority of household spending decisions
for themselves and their older and younger dependents, according to a study by TV Land

Filed under: affluent, Baby Boomers, economy, empty nesters, families, shopping

Rooms to Stop the Young From Straying – NYTimes.com

Rooms to Stop the Young From Straying – NYTimes.com

The rec room, once a wood-paneled corner of the basement with a dumpy couch and a TV with rabbit ears, is enjoying a revival in more upscale form. The space that parents cringed at the thought of entering and adolescents couldn’t wait to escape has been reimagined, largely by affluent suburbanites, as a haven of home theaters, stylish furniture, stainless kitchens and spa bathrooms — all deployed as lures to keep teenagers at home.

Filed under: affluent, Customization, entertainment, families, kids, Teens

High Fructose Corn Syrup Mixes It Up

The Corn Refiners
Association is trying to rehabilitate the reputation of high-fructose corn
syrup with a big ad and public-relations campaign to convince consumers that
HFCS isn’t the evil it has been made out to be. The group is running full-page
ads in more than a dozen major newspapers around the country today saying its
product is no worse for you than sugar.

~A

High Fructose Corn Syrup Mixes It Up – WSJ.com
The high-fructose corn-syrup business is fighting back.

In recent years, there have been a series of research papers and studies linking HFCS to the rise in obesity in the U.S. While sugar has to some degree also been blamed for America’s growing weight problems, HFCS, because it is manufactured, has come under greater criticism by consumers and some health professionals.

Filed under: advertising, Consumer, families, health, Internet, Moms

Apparel, Entertainment Top Mom’s Spending: Survey

The report, “Kids’ Share of
Wallet,” by The NPD Group, looks at how and where mothers spend theor
discretionary income on their children and gives manufacturers and retailers of
kids’ products an inside look at those factors and how much kids influence what
is spent.

~A

Apparel, Entertainment Top Mom’s Spending: Survey
When it comes to discretionary spending, moms drop the most (23%) on a single category—apparel. But nearly half (48%) of every dollar is used on entertainment items, including toys and board games, leisure activities, books, music movies videos games, electronics and concerts, according to a recent report.

Filed under: clothing, Consumer, families, fashion, Games, Moms, Women

Cookbook Publishers Try to Think Small

With a couple of notable exceptions in the 1980s and 1990s, children’s
cookbooks have made little impact, either in sales or attention. But that is changing, as parents who have a keen interest in cooking
encourage their young children to spend time in the kitchen and new
titles take a more sophisticated approach to children’s food. Although
no one tracks overall sales of cookbooks aimed at children, some
retailers say that sales have shot up. Readers too young to drive don’t
yet have their own “Joy of Cooking,” but publishers are looking
everywhere for it. And a number of cooking celebrities have joined in,
too.

~A

Cookbooks for Children Entice Young Chefs to the Stove – New York Times
AT a time when 2-year-olds take cooking classes, trick-or-treaters turn up in chef’s whites and a personalized child’s size spatula costs $20, it is no surprise that the children’s cookbook genre is enjoying a new life.

Filed under: Consumer, experiential, families, food, trends

A Mother’s Pay? $117,000

An annual report issued by Salary.com shows that a stay-at-home mom’s pay would be $117,000 a year if she were compensated monetarily for her work.

~A

A Mother’s Pay? $117,000 – WSJ.com
If a stay-at-home mom could be financially compensated, she would bring home nearly $117,000 a year.

Filed under: families, Moms

Big retailers seek teens (and parents)

With consumers cutting back on spending, many retailers have decided
the best way to recapture them is to deliver a more cutting-edge
experience and trendier clothing to attract their kids. The reasoning:
Even as parents tighten their belts, they still spend freely on their
children. If kids can get their parents to drive them to stores, the
parents will end up shopping for themselves, too.

~A

Big retailers seek teens (and parents) – USATODAY.com
Having lost shoppers to hip specialty shops, department stores are reinventing themselves to attract both adults and their style-minded children.

J.C. Penney, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue and Kohl’s are all adopting approaches — from celebrity-designed fashions to mobile marketing to better fitting rooms — to try to lure young shoppers without turning off their parents.

Filed under: clothing, Consumer, families, Teens, trends, Tweens

Day care’s new frontier: Your baby at your desk

More than 80 companies across the nation allow babies in the workplace,
according to Parenting in the Workplace Institute in Framingham, Mass.,
which says that number is likely to be low. It’s an extreme — and
controversial — example of how employers are seeking more ways to help
workers strike a balance between work and the rest of their lives.

~A

Day care’s new frontier: Your baby at your desk – USATODAY.com
At the T3 advertising firm in Austin, employees have a saying: It takes an agency to raise a child.

The $261 million company, whose clients include Marriott International,
Microsoft and J.C. Penney, lets a new parent bring his or her baby to
work — every day — until the child is old enough to crawl.

Filed under: Consumer, families, Women, workplace