The Parent-Industrial Complex

A new book airs the parenting industry's dirty diapers

By Jessica Wakeman
Published: Apr 22, 2008

"Planning to have a baby is like being indoctrinated into a cult," says Pamela Paul, seated in her nursery, where a rocking horse holds court. Her two young children have just fallen asleep, so Paul talks in a whisper.

And she knows of what she speaks. When this Time magazine contributor first became a mother three years ago, she found the acquisition of baby stuff as taxing as parenthood itself. She fretted when her infant daughter lacked interest in a supposedly-stimulating crib mobile, pondered over the merits of an $800 stroller, and sorted through a dizzying amount of Babies 'R' Us flotsam and jetsam—bottle nipples, breastfeeding pillows and the like.

"I had actually mocked this sort of parental behavior," she said of the rampant consumerism. "I had thought I was primed against this sort of thing, and yet I found myself totally falling into it."

Paul’s third book, Parenting, Inc. landed on bookstore shelves this month. In it, she explains how zealous marketing means 21st century parenthood often includes standing behind a shopping cart and staring down an aisle of products exploiting parents' natural instincts—to ensure their children's safety, to make foster their intellectual growth, and to provide every opportunity.

Of course, advertising has always been manipulative, but with a reporter's precision, Paul explores how goods and services are sold to parents based on needless guilt and irrational fears. She longs for a quainter time when normal rites of passage, like breast-feeding, potty training, and getting into a good preschool, were not sources of intense anxiety. Advertising sows panic in parents and as a result, she writes, "We are all looking to purchase solutions." And this fear knows no income bracket—after all, what parent wants to be the one who says no to a mountain of birthday presents or after-school tutoring?

Safeguarding kids from life's little dangers is a huge business. Paul writes about a $70 Germ Guardian Nursery Sanitizer that promises to kill 99.9 percent of germs on toys and bottles, where a run through the dishwasher might have made do in the past. She also finds a SafeGuard car seat whose packaging touts "aircraft aluminum construction." On the more extreme side, parents can follow their youngster's every move with a "panic button"-equipped tracking system, or peer at their sleeping baby in the dark through an infrared camera. At one point in time, parents relied on good recommendations before hiring a sitter or nanny; now, parents are shelling out $300 for "nanny cams" hidden inside teddy bears (as seen in The Nanny Diaries) to spy on their children's caretakers.

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