Post-Postmodern Parenting
Part 1: Baby gear in the age of anti-consumption consumerism
I’m in a neat showroom in a ritzy Massachusetts town asking a salesperson about shocks, disc brakes, wheel size, chassis material, and maximum payloads, but I’m not shopping for a car. Instead, my 13-weeks-pregnant wife and I are looking at baby strollers.
“This one has never-flat foam-filled tires and two-stage suspension,” the salesperson tells us. She’s in her 40s and, as far as I can tell, has forgotten more about baby gear than most people will ever know. “That makes it good for up to 55 pounds,” she continues.
The stroller in question — actually called a jogger — is a sleek three-wheeler with, what are to me anyway, hilariously gigantic wheels. I run my hands over the folding canopy and lose count of all the different zippers, buttons, latches, adjustment knobs, and brake levers. The brake rotors have holes for efficient cooling. The brochure hanging from the stroller mentions free color swatches are available on request.
“The good thing about the Expensive-Brand-Name stroller is that it lasts,” the salesperson says, “five, ten, twenty miles a day is no problem.”
For maybe the first time in my life I’m actually speechless — like, mouth-agape-want-to-speak-but-literally-can’t speechless. I never thought twice about strollers, bassinets, or car seats. Now I’m having to consider how many miles I’ll be strolling with my newborn who will become a baby who will become an infant who will become a toddler. Do they also sell odometers?
My wife helps me: “Ok so, the Expensive-Brand-Name one, can that one accept the Expensive-Brand-Name car seat?”
Salesperson: “Yes, but you’ll not want to use it too much. Pediatricians don’t recommend babies spend more than thirty minutes to an hour in a car seat.”
I gulp, finally find my voice, and say, “What happens after 30 minutes?”
“Oxygen,” the salesperson says, “the sitting position in a car seat can limit oxygen intake. After a long day of being in a car seat some babies can become oxygen deprived.”
Oxygen deprivation. My wife and I are somewhat stunned, but not all that surprised. It seems everything we remember from growing up has been proved bad. My childhood stroller, for instance — as best as I can recall it — had wheels from a shopping cart, a seat made from a tarp, and I was held in place by g-force and luck. It’s actually astounding how many things are forbidden to babies and the women who carry them. My dad was born in a hospital that allowed smoking, driven home strapped to a Buick bench seat, and given whiskey when he cried; my child’s stroller will have lumbar support.
I know how it sounds very “back in my day,” but it’s difficult not to constantly remind a salesperson who is trying to explain to you why the $500 highchair is worth it that, once upon a time, children were born in caves. Grumpy cynicism aside, there is a fair question to ask here. Has the (seemingly recent) obsession with allegedly-researched-backed baby dos and don’ts improved infant overall health and well-being? If yes, then maybe the expense and research is justified. If no, then American consumerism wins again.
In short, I don’t think it’s unfair to question some of the things we hear about infant health. When you dig into some of the claims, like the oxygen deprivation one above, you find that it’s never as simple as baby-gear stores, stroller manufacturers, and parent blogs make it sound. The study the salesperson is referencing above is probably this one out of the UK. It tested 40 babies, about half premature. The study put the infants in a simulator designed to mimic being in a car at 30 mph, measured their vitals, then compared those vitals to different positions at rest. They found that, while in motion, instances of oxygen desaturation below 85% were more common while in the simulator, and second-most common while stationary but in the 40-degree position common in car seats.
So maybe there is something to the whole car seat oxygen thing. But of course it is complicated by the fact that the infants being tested in the study were of a median age of 13 days. It seems, instead, that once your baby can hold its head up, a car seat is not a 30-minute ticking time bomb. This is where things get difficult, though, because the truth and the statistics don’t actually matter. What matters is the way these things make us feel. If there is any increased chance whatsoever that spending extra time in a car seat is bad for a baby— ignoring how dangerous just being in a car is in the first place— who would reasonably take that risk? This simple fact— and I’m not arguing this is even intentional on anybody’s part— is that studies like these affect consumers who just want to minimize risks to their helpless newborn. The implications of this risk minimization is a topic for another time, however.
“So if we buy the bassinet,” my wife begins, quickly changing the subject from sleep-death, “we can use this one from birth?”
The salesperson answers in the affirmative and I get lost in thought. The stroller — sorry, jogger — my wife is asking about costs around $600. The bassinet, which attaches to the main chassis is another $200. If you’ve got those two, you may as well then buy the same brand’s car seat for another $300. So you’re looking at eleven-hundred dollars. Eleven hundred! And the crazy thing is that there’s something about the appearance, about the simplicity of the folding mechanism, about the high milage, about the never-flat tires, about the aerodynamics, about the ability to take the whole thing on a run, about the shininess of it, about the shape of the canopy, about the way the thing glides effortlessly over the ground like it’s hovering — there’s something about the whole experience that makes you want to spend the money. You want that stroller — sorry, jogger — so bad that $1,100 begins to sound less like a crime and more like a necessity, a bargain even.
“I think I like this one the most,” I say, pointing at the Expensive-Name-Brand one.
“Yeah that’s a good one,” the salesperson replies, “and it’s reasonably priced. A lot of parents opt for more lightweight options. Personally, I don’t mind the bigger, bulkier ones. They’re a bit sturdier.”
There’s a pause as I look around the showroom, trying to figure out which of these plastic-and-metal behemoths are considered “lightweight.”
“Of course, a lot of customers,” the salesperson continues, “end up getting two strollers.”
“Two?” I gasp with eyebrows raised, wishing I had been drinking coffee so I had something to cartoonishly spit out.
“Yeah. A lot of parents keep a smaller one in the trunk for quick stuff.”
Again, just when I think I’ve found stable ground, I’m lost. The whole thing is creepy. Perhaps the best trick pulled on the consumer in the post-postmodern, post-post-post-irony, post-satire, post-everything era is that somehow the market has convinced anti-consumption consumers that they can live a simpler, more minimalist life by, well, consuming. “Look,” a salesperson or a friend or coworker might tell you, “look at how simple this stroller makes your life.” The crazy, maybe even Orwellian, thing about it is that we all believe it. Here I am, beginning to believe that buying a stroller chassis, a bassinet, and a car seat somehow will reduce the complexity of my life, that adding objects to my home will somehow reduce the material burden of our family, that two strollers will somehow make things even easier than that. But then again, are we always going to want to carry this big huge thing up our stairs every single time? Plus, what if we need to go to a really small store where maneuverability is key? Oh, and then there’s the issue of weight because, like, what if we are on a plane and need to carry it through the airport…
It seems every step in the whole having-a-baby journey is complicated by the previous step, and every question you have leads to an infinite number of possible answers. Does anybody need two strollers? Well if you really want one, you can justify it. If you think it’s the worst idea you’ve ever heard, you can justify that, too. All it takes is a Google search. Parenting— and the things you need to be good at it— seems to be suffering from a problem that I think is unique to the internet age: there is too much information. This is bad for the parent, but it is likely quite good for retailers, especially brick-and-mortar ones. The modern salesperson no longer gets by by being slick, smooth-talking, and charming. Instead, they get by by being a filter. The salesperson at this particular baby-gear store offered us a service. She saves us from having to cut through all the confusing, conflicting crap on the internet, and she distills it down into “here’s what you really need to know.” This doesn’t just go for baby stores, either. Go to a fancy, hipstery butcher shop or coffee roaster or tobacconist, and you’ll find the service they are really offering is is myth debunking, is bullshit cutting, is trust.
That’s not to say that understanding the trick makes you immune. Because, I mean, I can kinda see how having that extra stroller would maybe save us some time and energy…
“So which other one do people usually get,” my wife asks.
The salesperson points us to a boxy four-wheeled contraption with a name that sounds like an operating system. I scoff at the number of wheels, and then I realize that in the space of a single conversation I’ve been tricked into having opinions about strollers.
“I don’t like the four wheels,” I blurt out, “looks boring.”
The salesperson considers this a moment, then speaks, “Of course, if you want, you can book a full consultation. We take you outside with the strollers, let you try folding them, discuss your personal situation, see what works best for you both.”
A stroller consultation. How did we get here? Every step we took to get to this point felt logical, but taken on its own, a “stroller consultation” sounds like satire. No, there’s no way. Consultations are for contractors, dental work, surgery! Consultations are not for baby transport! Why would I need a consultation for the device I use to push my baby down a sidewalk and through a mall? Hell, can’t I just hold her? But then again babies are heavy. Plus do I really want to be seen downtown with some old-fashioned piece of crap that I can’t figure out how to fold? Christ, what are the long-term implications for a child who grew up being pushed around in some ancient and inexpensive death trap? But it’s not just social pressure, is it? The phrase “oxygen deprivation” enters back into my brain.
“Do most customers do the consultation?” my wife asks.
“Yeah, we’re usually pretty booked up.”
I guess, though when it really comes down to it, a human being can be reduced to one simple thing: a mechanism for reproduction. Whether you grow the baby or simply provide the seed, really what you’re designed to do is procreate. You eat and drink and work and sleep and commute and stress and cry and plan in order to survive in order to procreate. It’s the only thing you can really argue life is meant to do. As a result, you’d think it would be the simplest thing in the world.
Or at least you would think that until somebody offers you a baby stroller consultation and you say, “Yes. Yes, that sounds lovely. We need one of those.”
“Great! We’ll see you next week.”
