• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, August 10, 2010

If you're a tween, your mom is probably cooler than anyone else's mom. She's more likely to be on Facebook, listen to Top 40 radio, and read blogs than other adults, according to a new report by the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association (RAMA), a division of the National Retail Federation.

Tweens -- kids ages 8 to 12 -- have emerged as something of an It Market in the last few years, for everything from clothes to décor to laptops. "But we did this study because we didn't know much about their mothers," Mike Gatti, RAMA's executive director, tells Marketing Daily. "She's very busy, but compared to other adults, she's busy in different ways."

While moms with pre-teens largely hold professional or managerial jobs, not unlike other adults, (37.5% versus 30.9%) more moms with tweens label themselves as homemakers (13.9% versus 4.7%) or clerical or service workers (16.1% vs. 9.8%) than the average adult over 18 years old. "And she is more progressive in knowing how to do much of this new-media stuff," he says.

For example, 48.2% of moms with pre-teens regularly use Facebook, compared to 39.9% of other adults, "and they're more likely to read blogs, but less likely to write them or contribute to them. And more than a third use cell phones to search online, compared to 31.5% for adults overall. We think that all points to her being an intensely research-driven shopper."

The moms of Generation Z, as some demographers like to call these kids, are also adept at multitasking: While using any media, more than three-quarters of moms with tweens say they also do laundry and housework. And while the average adult is listening to rock and oldies most often, more than one-third of tween moms listen to rock and top 40/pop music.

When it comes to shopping, she is more influenced by coupons for grocery and apparel purchases than any other type of media, including in-store promotions, word-of-mouth, advertising inserts and even direct mail.