In the context of wedding registries, the following questions, statements, and lamentations might be made:
“Do we really need formal china?”
“Who in our family is going to pay for a $300 pillow, let alone a set of two?”
“Hell yes, register for the bar kit!”
“Do you need to make ray gun noises every time you scan an item?”
“No, beer and video games are not appropriate registry items.”
“This is kind of fun.”
By way of contrast, the following might be said while registering for a new baby:
“What degree of impact has this product been tested for?”
“How many times has this product been recalled?”
“Why are you implying my child will die if I don’t by this?”
“What is this? What does it do? Who would need that? Why? Can you start over please?”
“There are different kinds?”
“This is mildly terrifying.”
The difference obviously is that the wedding registry is all about the wants (framed as needs, no doubt, but wants all the same) of two individuals who presumably resemble adults and are able to fend for themselves. The baby registry, while full of wants and whims, is primarily about the needs of a helpless, squealing newborn, and is being overseen in most cases by those same two presumed-adults, a year or several down the line, who are slowly realizing they don’t have a clue what adulthood and responsibility are all about. There is immense pressure to choose correctly, to cover every base, and to do everything in your power to protect your new child from Entropy - that is, the scientific principle that the universe is out to kill us all.
We put this pressure on ourselves, completely ignoring or forgetting that thousands of years of human history have passed with human infants wearing strips of cloth or nothing at all, sleeping on hay, and playing with sticks and rocks in order to get all of us here. We defy history, choosing instead to give our own children better than one in ten odds of survival by buying the latest and greatest gear rolled out by Graco, or Britax for the big spenders. The pressure is not eased at all by the overt upselling of the big-box baby stores, where the employees will pass you from department to department on your introductory tour, give you intense demonstrations of the high end products and not quite tell you that your child will be killed or maimed if you buy a lesser product. The big-box stores not geared specifically for babies are no better, since they just hand you the registry gun and assume you know what is best for your baby. Right.
All of that is a meandering preamble to the real reason for this post: listing and mocking some baby oriented products. These products were chosen more or less at random for usefulness, ridiculousness, mock-worthiness, or sheer oddity. And because I was able to find them with a simple Google search.
1. Waste Disposal bags - the official description needs no help: “One for really hard-core greenies in keeping with current trends to cut down waste and keep in tune with natural rhythms. The idea is to monitor Baby’s bowel movements, and, instead of clothing them in diapers, let them do their thing whenever and wherever they please. The trick is to always have your 100% bio-degradable ‘baby poop scoop’ bag at hand to ensure their waste doesn’t become the planet’s.”
Yeah. It’s just like what you use when you take your dog for a walk. For your kid.
2. Pee-Pee Tee-pee - Doesn’t take much imagination to figure these out, but here’s a hint: my wife and I won’t need these disposable items for our daughter.
3. The Zaky Pillow - Pillow designed to look and feel like disembodied hands holding your baby in place. Have to admit, I found this on a fellow father/blogger’s site, and I have to agree with his assessment. Creepiest kid product ever. See picture if you don't believe me.
4. Milkscreen Test Strips - Brilliant little invention changes color if your breast milk is above a specified concentration of alcohol. Because let’s be honest, after nine months, no one gets to see the damn kid without bringing mommy a bottle of wine.
5. mamaRoo - Hi-tech “swing” features numerous movement setting designed to sooth your baby, including (inevitably) the setting for which it is named - the gentle hopping of a kangaroo. This device probably works wonders, seeing as it take advantage of the soothing genetic memory every human child shares of riding around in a marsupial’s pouch.
6. Any item, clothing or otherwise, ever featured on Toddler’s in Tiaras - Your three-year old doesn’t need high heels, diamond earrings, or anything made by Louis Vuitton. Especially if you are buying her formula with WIC vouchers.
What’s the most ridiculous baby-oriented product you’ve run across? More importantly, for us future parents, what’s the most useful?
Useful: Pampers
ReplyDeleteNot useful: Huggies (you may as well have them poop on the floor)
Useful: baby swing, baby bjorn, coupons and baby clubs that get you reduced (and sometimes free) diapers/formula - Trust me, it adds up quick. Towards the end of the formula days it was easily $100/month JUST on formula.
Not useful: Clowns
We've used cloth diapers for Grayson for almost 2 years. You can change the size as the baby grows and they're machine washable for cleaning. We only bought like 12 of them and that's been enough. They're expensive up front, but it saves tons of money on diapers. Grayson's never had diaper rash using them.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fuzzibunz.com/one_size_diaper.php
Dave - you're not the first person to tell us to avoid Huggies, so obviously your experience is not isolated. We've been told Pampers followed closely by Target's generics are the way to go for disposables.
ReplyDeleteAllison - we've talked about cloth, but between my wife's germophobia and my own laziness I suspect the best we will do is use them to supplement convenient, landfill clogging disposables. :-/ Perhaps though.
I've also heard good things about Walgreens' brand diapers being cheap and good, but have not bought them to verify...
ReplyDeleteUseful: Baby Einstein DVD's (People can say what they want, but Elliott started watching them in a bouncy seat (20 min here and there) when she was 4 months....it was a LIFESAVER when I wanted to do something frivolous like, say, take a shower.
ReplyDeleteNot Useful: Kid's Music (Exluding Lunch Money) It's a terrible precedent to set. I have too many friends who have every car trip and day out running errands monopolized by shitty music and overly jolly singing voices (lobotomy, anyone?). We make our kid listen to our music. Period.
Alex - I agree about the music. I can't imagine anything more likely to make me snap and kill someone than listening to the kid's bop version of pop hits I hated when they were sung by the original artist.
ReplyDelete(inserting shameless plug) Thankfully, we do have wonderful bands like Lunch Money who write kid friendly music that doesn't annoy the crap out of parents. http://www.lunchmoneymusic.com/
Aww, you guys are awesome! Obviously, we don't have kids, but I'm fairly certain these things are useless:
ReplyDeleteTummy Tub Baby Bath- I don't think I'm underselling it when I tell you it's a bucket, with the possible added feature of being a pail, though without a handle, so less useful, actually. It does cost $35.50.
The Daddle- It's a saddle for dad. Let the psychoanalysis begin.
The The Nuvo Ritmo Pregnancy Sound System- Really, only a picture will serve. Click the link for its audio/fashion awesomeness.
The useful front is harder, but there are awesome kids' bands other than Lunch Money. In particular I suggest Recess Monkey, Frances England, and Secret Agent 23 Skidoo.
Good luck!
The Nuvo Ritmo, or something very much like it, is sold by Think Geek. Early on, my wife indicated she kind of wanted it. Thankfully, that whim passed.
ReplyDeleteThat saddle thing... that's wrong on just so many levels.