Sunday 16 December 2012

On being a PUNK

There was an article in the Monday, December 10, 2012 edition of the Montreal Gazette about "PANKs" which it defined as "Professional Aunts No Kids". It discussed how there is enough of a demographic of professional, childless women buying gifts for nieces and nephews that marketers are trying to target them specifically. There is even a dedicated website called the SavvyAuntie.com.

I was disappointed by the article and even a tad offended that there wasn't any reference to the male equivalent, to which I belong a professional, an uncle and having no kids. This feeling was heightened by the fact that the relevant acronym works so well, i.e. PUNK: Professional Uncle, No Kids! This is blatant gender discrimination, I tell you! PUNK dollars are just as good as PANK dollars! ;-)
Actually, I think I'd rather prefer not being marketed to, and revel in my "outlaw" status of a PUNK. ;-)

2 comments:

Susan Gwyn said...

Excellent!

Philip said...

Childless uncles are much more common and have been for a long time. I've read that something close to 80% of human females have children, but only 40% for males. I use "human females" because the timespan of the study was something like since the dawn of humanity. I wish I still had a citation for this.