Day Communications

I love writing positive reviews on successful businesses that practice ethical behavior. Unfortunately, I also have no problem expressing my concerns when I feel like a company has abused it's power by taking advantage of their target audience. Day Communications are the owners of Nashville Parent Magazine, where their slogan is "every family matters". I guess they mean every family except mine. I'm pretty sure this was just an isolated incident since they seem like a great company and have been around for several years, but (as minor as my situation may seem) it was handled VERY poorly. I expected more respect from a Magazine that claims to care about parents and children.

Nashville Parent Magazine runs a contest where parents who wish to see their child on the cover page are asked to post pictures of their children and spread the word so that family and friends can boost Nashville Parent Magazine rankings by registering for their site and liking their Facebook page. Fair enough cause that's all a part of marketing. It seems like a great idea until you win and show up for the photoshoot excited and naive to the fact that once you sign a photo release, Nashville Parent Magazine has the right to use your child's image however they see fit.

After winning the contest I showed up to the photoshoot with my little girl where co-owner and editor and chief [redacted] presented me with a little boys Halloween costume. Shame on me for allowing them to photograph her in this. After a few shots [redacted] admitted that this was too boyish and gave my daughter a little girls costume. To make a long story short, after showing me photographs of her in the girl costume, the company published my daughter in a boy costume. When I emailed to express my disappointment [redacted] responded: "the boy costume fit the seasons color scheme while the girl outfit looked easter-ish". While I understand this from a design standpoint, you're talking about someone's child. Would you publish a little boy in a princess gown cause the colors were right?

Anyway, there is nothing I can do with the fact that my daughter was portrayed as a little boy on Nashville Parent Magazine which is distributed all over middle TN. It is what it is, however I did kindly ask [redacted] to consider my child for another cover in a year in which she responded: "Thank you for sharing your concerns and thoughts. I wish I could grant every parent's request for a cover or a reshoot or an additional cover. There are simply too many children in the world! We'll put the picture of your daughter in the girl costume in the back of the next issue. Sincerely, [redacted]" . I thought that was pretty insensitive. Sounds like [redacted] has a bit of a disconnect and can't differentiate between a caring parent vs. a stage mom hounding her for a shot a fame. I don't want an additional cover, I just simple wanted a cover shoot where my child was not crossed gendered.

So, while this situation was very minor and can easily be viewed as a mommy whining over her kids cover photo; it's more about practicing what you preach and being sensitive to people's feelings and concerns... especially when you're dealing with their child. I mean, let's be real for a minute; does EVERY family really matter? I trusted Day Communications and Nashville Parent Magazine with my daughters image and they introduced her to the community as a little boy. All they had to do was respectfully accept that it was a poor judgement call, apologize and politely fix it by offering my child another shoot in the future. It's just that simple.