Please fill out our survey

A couple days ago, I talked about our new (and exciting) partnership with Federated Media. Finding good-quality, relevant ads for Parent Hacks requires knowing something about the folks who visit. To that end, FM has put together a short, anonymous survey. I'd appreciate if you took a couple minutes to fill it out -- by doing so, you'll give our ad program a major bootstrap. Thanks a lot.

Comments

[Stu Mark]

Did anyone else notice that FullTime Parent wasn't on the list of choices for employment? I have enough trouble convincing friends and ::ugh:: family about the fact that my wife is ecstatic over my success in raising our two children while she is busy bringing home the house payment. I point everyone to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homemaker
Thank you.

[Jill]

That was the first time I've referred to my family as my company. We're a small little company of 4, and I'm CEO, COO, Manager and every other title including MOM. I'm a teacher, a maid, a chef, a healthcare provider, and entertainer,- I'm also afraid the survey won't be very accurate. I tend to get sarcastic when approached this way. The survey needs some major alterations.

[Parent Hacks Editor]

The survey is indeed lacking. I'm sorry it brings up the frustrating comparison of a family to a business, and the notion that an at-home parent doesn't "work." It was developed for tech sites, and doesn't translate well to a parenting site. However, the information, while not ideal, will still help us a lot. Thanks for bearing with us.

[Lost reader ...]

While I have found this website to be helpful, I share the sentiments of the above posters - as a stay at home dad I find it blatently insulting that the survey did not include any reference to homemaker/stay at home parent. While the advertising may be neccessary to keep the site running, it appears to me that the company is not focused enough on the unique attributes of this site. If their survey does not identify the proper attributes of the sites viewers, I doubt their advertising will be of interest to the viewers either. As it stands, we have an admission above from Jill that her answers were selected for humor. In addition, my answers are also not legitimate. So - though I don't know how many surveys will be ultimately completed, at least two of them are bogus and will skew the results.

Since I now cannot shake the impression that this site only exists as a profit driven enterprise, I am forced to reluctantly unsubscribe this site from my RSS reader. I will however, check back on Friday. If a more formal apology is given as a full posting by the site editor, and a new survey is developed that will acurately assess the audience of this website, I will gladly resubscribe.

PS - name withheld out of concern for privacy concerns

[Parent Hacks Editor]

Wow. This is terrible. I am very sorry to have offended at least one of you enough to drive you away. I am working on this and will give you all an update soon, hopefully within a day.

[RickP in AZ]

Chalk me up as another full-time, At-Home Dad who definitely noted that I didn't have a job. :-) But I'm not going to give up such a great resource as Parenthacks.com.

I guess the pressing question is how an At-Home Dad spends $2500-$4,999 on electronics in the past 12 months. Hope my wife didn't notice...

[Stu Mark]

Dear Lost Reader,

As a stay-at-home fulltime father, I can appreciate your feelings. The survey also hit me where I live. However, I'd like to give you my impressions of parenthacks.com and Asha, the one at the helm.

I'm an outsider, having never met Asha. Also, I am a heavy duty internet citizen (since Summer of '93) and someone who pays strict attention to how our Internet environment is protected. Indeed, there are many, many websites that are profit-motivated.

parenthacks.com does not seem to be that way. I have found Asha to be heart-felt, sincere, and ernest in her desire to create a place for parents to get help, to create a community. It seems to be her way of giving back to the Internet. The ads seem to be a way of deflecting the costs of keeping it going. I'll bet you paychecks that Asha isn't making anything more than a nickel an hour for all this effort. She may one day be able to make a living, and bless her if she does. This website is a great place to feel vindicated for all my hard work as a parent. Personally, I call this site ParentsRock, not ParentHacks. And I get that good feeling for free, from Asha's heart to mine. I think that is a fantastic thing.

Again, I appreciate your impression of the survey and I can empathize. But this was an innocent mistake. Asha probably just didn't review the survey, or was distracted by a bumblebee or whatever. There's not a chance that she posted the connection to the survey because she wanted to piss off the fulltime parents, or that she made the mistake because she was too busy counting her millions.

I'm sure you mean well, as do I. So I formally ask you to give Asha a second chance. In fact, I ask that you let her make all the mistakes that are needed in order for her to make this a better place. I think she's like someone providing water to Somalis. parenthacks.com is really one of the only places I can find where I can talk about parenting and feel like I am respected for it.

Let's keep our eye on the ball.

[Stephanie]

Once again another stinker of a survey. I took the same one for BoingBoing recently. I too am voicing my discontent about homemaker/domestic engineer/housewife/househusband not being listed as a job.

[Stu Mark]

Stephanie brings up an important point. This survey has happened elsewhere, and other reputable sites have make a similar misstep. I remember this for boingboing as well, and I sent them a similar reply. I think it's just an oops, nothing more. And, hey, it promotes this kind of public dialogue, which is what parenting needs. So there's a silver lining, which is what my Mom taught me. In fact, there lies the parenting hack: When your kids make a mistake, find the silver lining.

[Parent Hacks Editor]

The FM survey has obviously rankled some readers, understandably so. I rather naively believed its slant toward business/tech wasn't ideal, but certainly wasn't offensive. Clearly it is to some of you, and for that I'm very sorry.

I've talked this over with FM, and they're the first to say they screwed up as well. They developed the survey for their tech-related sites, and were fully aware that it's not a great fit for non-tech sites. But at the moment, it's the best demographic tool they've got. They're working on a new survey, and, if it looks good, I'll post it in the future.

Lost Reader said he couldn't "shake the impression that this site only exists as a profit driven enterprise." If I've given that impression, with the survey or otherwise, I regret it, because it's not accurate. Parent Hacks exists to amplify the voices of real parents. I do hope to make some money in the long run; I don't think it's unreasonable to want to be paid for what might someday turn into full-time writing. I would be honored if Parent Hacks ever became that successful because I believe in this site, and I hope you do, too.

So, I hope this experience hasn't soured you on what we're doing here. I respect and appreciate my readership and I know this blog would be worth nothing without your contributions.

If you have more to say, good or bad, by all means, let's keep talking.

[RickP in AZ]

Let's look at this in the proper scope. ParentHacks is a site devoted to parenting, more specifically younger parents with kids. Tips and handy bits of advice, given, exchanged and discussed.

Those same younger parents are going to be highly tech-saavy, but are also going to do things differently than the previous 2 generations. Many may be running the "traditional" dual income household, but a sizable portion will be At-Home Moms or Dads who's sole job is rearing the children, or "Working" At-Home parents who are not only parenting but also do freelance work or telecommute.

A boilerplate survey is more than likely going to have many areas which don't apply to the "non-conventional" household which many of us run. It is certainly true that those of us left out should bring it to people's attention so that the future surveys can be changed to be more inclusive. But it is bordering on rediculous to leave the site over something so trivial.

I can't wait for parenthacks.com to become popular enough to turn a profit. Profit is *not* bad, especially if it allows those directly involved with the site to being the parents they want to be. Besides, they may want to hire someone like me, even if they probably shouldn't... :-)

[Kai Jones]

Yeah, don't get your nose out of joint because "stay at home parent" wasn't an option: none of the jobs at my workplace were included, because it's a lawfirm. There was no job description for "secretary" or "administrative assistant", no option for "attorney", no "law" in the industry section. I just put that stuff in the comments so they could tweak their survey instrument, I didn't take it as commentary about my life choices!