Equal rights for men? This is why ‘Amazon Mom’ needs a name change

Here’s something you don’t hear every day: Amazon is under fire for not giving men equal treatment.

It’s about “Amazon Mom,” a section of the Amazon website where users order diapers, wipes and other such items and get them shipped to your door. (But let’s be honest, Amazon Mom should sell cocktail shakers, too.)

Anyway, I hear it’s convenient.

On Monday, 42-year-old stay-at-home dad and author of the popular blog, “Blogger Father,” Oren Miller, died of lung cancer.

He had written about this issue before because Amazon Mom made him feel left out.

Before he died, Miller asked everyone to sign a petition, started by stay-at-home dads in Kansas, to get Amazon to change the name to something more like, “Amazon Family.”

He wrote, “It’s about a company that looks at the U.S., then looks at England, and then decides that over there, parent equals mom or dad, while here, well, we’re not ready for that yet.”

His point? Amazon does call it “Amazon Family” in the U.K., France, Canada, Japan, Germany and Austria.

In the U.S. it’s just “Amazon Mom.”

What does that say about how we value American dads?

This year, at the Super Bowl, Dove ran a commercial tearjerker about Real Men, depicting loving dads.

That seems like real progress.

It’s hard to deny times are changing, too. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of stay-at-home dads in the U.S. has doubled to more than 2.2 million.

One of them is stay-at-home dad of five and Seattle blogger Daniel Pelfrey, who said being part of his kids’ lives on a daily basis is the best part of his job.

“My 10-month-old is about to take his first steps and I’m going to be there for that,” Pelfrey said, child cooing in the background.

Pelfrey said Amazon Mom ignores not only stay-at-home dads, but gay parents and non-traditional families, where aunts, uncles and grandparents may step into what Amazon infers is the “mom” role.

“It has always struck me sort of odd that Amazon Mom is open to all but doesn’t actually have the name that seems as inclusive as its policy,” Pelfrey said.

I had to do this story. I’m doing it for my husband, who was a stay-at-home dad for a time.

Just this past weekend, he was visibly excited to usher my daughter into the next phase in life: potty training. But he was stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of my daughter’s new potty. The box said: “Makes potty training easy for mom.”

(“For mom” is written on the box in bold, by the way.)

He was hurt. He was resentful.

The truth is, dads have long been depicted in movies as inept buffoons, as we saw in the cringe-worthy “Mom’s Night Out.”

That stereotype just isn’t fair to the vast majority of dads. Just as it isn’t fair for moms to be depicted as harping perfectionists.

The reality is that dads are often like late blogger Oren Miller, who cared for a 6 and 4-year-old and who just wanted all parents to be recognized by Amazon.

Miller said this at a blogger’s convention:

For me, the best part of being a dad is watching little babies turn into creatures that learn to love and hate and think and learn and find out about their place in the world, basically watching my kids grow is the best part.

It would be difficult for Amazon to argue that fathers like Miller don’t deserve inclusiveness.

As of Friday morning, Amazon has not responded to the thousands of people who have signed the petition for their website to be changed to “Amazon Family”.