Parenting, Inc.

I have a stack of books on my nightstand and like most parents, my reading time is limited to the period between when I can get my offspring to sleep and when exhaustion overtakes me and I pass out with my clothes on and the light shining in my face. This usually ends up being somewhere in the neighborhood of five minutes to a half hour depending on the day and how energetically Jack rails against the dying of the light. I noticed recently that my choice of books reflects the preoccupations of my day to day life; sleeplessness and child rearing. For example, the last book I finished was a 500 page tome on the history of coffee, which took me over a month to slog through. I am currently deep into Pamela Paul’s new book, "Parenting, Inc.: How We Are Sold on $800 Strollers, Fetal Education, Baby Sign Language, Sleeping Coaches, Toddler Coutur, and Diaper Wipe Warmers . And What it Means For Our Children" (Times Books, 2008). You can pretty much guess the content of the book by the unnecessarily long title. I’m not a huge fan of Pamela Paul, (I disagree with almost everything she wrote in her last book on pornography), but she does a good job of deconstructing the parenting industrial complex that has risen along with easy access to credit and disposable income. The book asks and then answers questions like, “Why do parents think that they need an $800 stroller? Why do they think their kids should watch "Baby Einstein" videos? Does the baby really need $80 face cream? Bugaboo strollers are treated in particular detail, with their initial marketing plan and the response by consumers dissected in detail.

To me the most interesting issue is how the corporations have learned how to manipulate parent’s fear that their child may not be hitting their developmental milestones and using this as an effective marketing tool. Parents have been conditioned to fear that their child will fall behind if they don’t purchase a bevy of products or send them to an infant development class. It is amazing how easily otherwise intelligent parents are manipulated to break out the credit cards for a bunch of overpriced products whose efficacy is completely unproven. Case in point: Baby Einstein and similar video and DVD programs are heavily marketed to parents of infants and young children, but the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends children under 2 be exposed to little or no television. In fact, a recent study found that Baby Einstein videos actually inhibit learning. Not to mention the fact that such videos are also unnecessary. From a Paul interview in Slate recently:

“The playpen is something that all of our parents used. You plopped the kid in it, and then you ran to take the laundry out of the washing machine, and throw it in the dryer, or to return a call to your girlfriend. Today, the playpen is considered totally verboten. You never put your kid in a playpen. How could you limit their exploration? How could you deprive them of the stimulation? You may as well be spanking your kid roundly every day for no reason whatsoever. But what is Baby Einstein really, but a modern playpen? It's a way to have your kid occupied, while you get to go do something else…Baby Einstein used to say this quite openly in their marketing: "Go take a shower, while your kid is learning about Noah's Ark." Now, they're much more careful about their wording, and they say: "This is an interactive experience for you to watch with your child." But you talk to most parents, and the last thing that they want to do is watch Baby Einstein. It's incredibly annoying.” I can attest to that. I'll probably post a bit more on this topic in the weeks ahead.