The Boy in the Bubble

In case you didn't know it, your house is a death trap. Sure it may be safe for you and other mature bipeds, but your domicile is a gauntlet of terror for your fragile progeny. Behold the razor sharpness of your coffee table. Ponder the oceanic depths of your toilet bowl. Recoil in horror at the gaping maw of your VCR if you are naive enough to still have one. These dangers are real, dear reader, but luckily there is someone out there to save us. Someone to helps us get our children safely to adulthood despite the peril they face every day. That someone is One Step Ahead or as my husband and I call it The Baby Fear Catalogue.

For those of you who don't know, One Step Ahead is a catalogue of mainly infant and toddler merchandise specifically geared toward developmental milestones and childproofing. It's pages overflow with gadgets to help parents deal with raising a child in the modern world and all that entails. Some of the things are actually useful - the latest sippy cups, potties and baby gates - none of which I am opposed to. I actually bought those zip-up blanket things for the kids to wear at night and slept better because of it. However, the majority of the catalogue is not dedicated to such useful, and sane, items. The rest of the merchandise primarily preys on the fears and insecurities of the modern parent focusing on two questions, "Am I doing everything to help my child develop normally?" and "Is my child going to die a tragic, accidental death because of something I did or didn't do?".

The developmental stuff starts early. "The Perfect Travel Toy!" - for infants, because staring at the back of the driver's seat or his hand isn't stimulating enough. Trade school for you! Your child is learning to walk and you're holding his hands above his head for support? You'll dislocate his shoulders! Here's a harness that looks like it came straight from Ringling Brothers to solve that problem. Potty training? Forget it. If you don't have the"Potty Watch" that tells your child it's time to go every thirty minutes you might as well invest in a lifetime supply of Depends. Your kid's a thumb sucker? Here's a plastic cast to cover his whole hand until you get him to break the habit. It goes on and on, but a lot of this stuff is trying to take the place of good old-fashioned common sense and parental involvement. Kids can handle a few minutes without stimuli, like riding to the grocery store. Don't pull too hard on your kid's hands when helping her to walk. You have to watch your little pooper like a hawk during potty training because you are her potty watch. And you might just have to tell your child "NO" about the thumb sucking at least in public.

If you think the developmental stuff is bad, wait until you get to the safety portion. Now, I admit, some of it is very handy. I myself had to buy corner guards for the coffee table after my middle one split her lip open on it. The baby gates are also very useful for keeping kids off the stairs. What I despise are the items like the toilet bowl lock. Seriously, if your kid can not keep his head out of the toilet you have bigger things to worry about. As for the VCR cover, how about telling your kids, "HEY! Don't put your hands in there!" Another gem is the set of "Snazzy Baby knee pads" to protect baby's knees as she's learning to crawl. I don't know about you, but I learned to crawl without the benefit of padding and I still have skin on my knees. Guess what? If it hurts to crawl on it, maybe your kid shouldn't be on it, you know, like broken glass. The creme de la creme, the piece de resistance, is pictured above. It is the "Bumper Bonnet". Yes people, it's a helmet. They've gone beyond trying to alter the environment and just decided to wrap the kids' head in foam. What's next? A bubble?

I'm not trying to criticize these people for trying to keep our kids safe or help parents with tricky stages. What I take issue with is the needless, expensive crap they are trying to sell when really, just being attentive and creative could solve the problem. In addition, what are we teaching kids about the world around them if we alter every aspect of their surroundings to fit their needs? In fact, what are we teaching them at all? Johnny will learn to stay away from the radiator when he touches it the first time. Harsh, but true. Millions of people survived before all this crap was invented. As my father so sagely put it, "With all the stuff out there now, you must think it's a miracle you lived."

* I must give a shout out to my girl, Jean Roy, who forwarded this topic to me after receiving the catalogue in the mail. She doesn't have kids yet, but she's already hip to the jive.