Don’t pin this “Yoga Mom” to her mat
posted in Mom Rants, Mom Marketing |Apparently I’m a part of a new demographic called “Yoga Moms” (or Mamas, if you prefer that). According to an Entreprenuer.com article, we are highly fashionable (ok, I buy that), health conscious (sometimes) and affluent (not according to my husband). Apparently Yoga Moms do yoga during pregnancy (I did until I couldn’t possibly twist my enlarged belly any longer), eat mostly organic products, and squire (love that word) our babes around in a Bugaboo stroller (full disclosure, I have one).
On the surface, it would appear that I fit a lot of the “Yoga Mom” criteria. But upon further reading of the article, and of other “Yoga Mom” posts, I’m beginning to think this is just another case of a marketing researcher trying to pigeonhole his customer base into an unfortunate moniker.
I definitely don’t fit in with the Yoga Mamas of the BloggingStocks group. According to the author Sarah Gilbert, she and her Yoga Mama friends, “buy organic cereal under a generic brand… clean with vinegar and water… may not use disposable diapers…”
Furthermore, Gilbert is trying to “reduce the use of our car” has a pact with her friends, “no gifts at birthday parties” and doesn’t “need a hugely plastic $99.99 Fisher Price Interactive Play Pyramid to have stimulating play time with our babies.”
Hmm… if that’s what being a Yoga Mom is like, then I want out. No gifts for babies? No toys? What’s the fun of that? No disposable diapers? How much laundry do these moms do in a day? And I can’t get my arms around how these moms get their errands done without using a car (does the Burley trailer really work?). Sounds like these Yoga Mamas don’t get to Target much. They’re missing out.
But the other extreme that I’ve seen, that of buying Burt’s Bees lotion at $8.99 a pop for my baby and buying organic shirts doesn’t quite fit me either. I’m fine with slapping on the Aquaphor when my son has dry skin. It works just fine. And I do buy organic food from Whole Foods, but I’m not opposed to getting his onesies from Old Navy. Their cotton seems plenty soft.
So as a mom who works in the world of marketing, a word of caution to these researchers- I can do a downward dog as good as the next Yoga Mom. But let’s try to keep the similarities there, on the mat.
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