Expecting parents are the most susceptible people in the world.
If a soon-to-be parent reads an advertisement that says this product - usually something like a black and white rattle - will increase their child's I.Q., his social skills and his money-generating ability as an adult, that item is as good as sold.
Parents are ruled by guilt. This is an odd concept for me because all I can remember about growing up was feeling guilty for making my mom crazy, but maybe that was her way of sharing the job.
Parents want the best for their kids. And since the parent has no real concept of what the "best" means, we have to rely on so-called experts.
These are people who have studied baby things their entire lives and know what babies need and what will help them develop into normal human beings. Or they are people who get paid gobs of money to lie. It's hard to tell them apart.
For instance, once upon a time someone did a study that demonstrated that infants can only see black and white for the first few months of life and that high-contrast toys would help the child's brain develop faster.
Even now - after thousands of parents painted black and white squares all over nursery walls only to find out that their child still drools and poops like a normal kid - there are still a whole line of black and white toy products out there.
A parent walking into a baby store has an overwhelming experience. But what is worse is getting catalogs at home, where you cannot avoid people trying to sell ergonomically designed high chairs and brand name sunglasses for your child.
We received one catalog that sells rattles. There is even a rattle shaped like a cell phone. I guess it would be cute to see a baby playing with an "adult" item, but what happens when junior gets hold of your real cell phone and dials Hong Kong?
When I was a kid, the only toy I can even remember was one of those jumper seats that hangs off of a doorjamb. You sit the kid in the seat and then he can bounce for hours.
Well, apparently those are no longer considered safe. They still sell them, but if you buy one, the clerk will look at you funny and put you on a list of bad parents that they then turn over to the police.
I thought that one of the simplest purchases we would make for our baby would be the mobile for the crib. All it consists of is a music box and some cute things that spin around above the kid's head when he is lying in the crib.
But, no! It's not so simple. Apparently the mobiles have changed. People finally realized that from the kid's perspective, the only view he had of the fuzzy bears spinning above him was of the bears' crotches. Now, mobiles are tilted so kids can see the whole bear.
No scientist has determined what happened to the thousands of kids who grew up staring at bear crotches, but my guess is that they would not be fun to talk to at parties.
Besides the stuff directed at the kids these catalogs also feature stuff directed at the parents.
For instance, sure, those audio baby monitors are fine for normal parents, but if you want to have a perfectly safe child, you need a video monitor. This gives the parents the ability to watch every single move their child makes to see if they have the potential for a career in music videos.
And then, of course, is the diaper pail. Now they offer these canisters where you put the soiled diaper in and twist the lid, and the diaper is preserved in plastic so thousands of years from now archeologists will be able to tell what your child had for lunch.
The only downside of all these products aimed at new parents is that most new parents are so poor they can't waste a lot of money on this stuff.
Which is where the grandparents come in.
Parents are only one of the most susceptible groups of consumers. Do you know who holds the number one ranking? Yes, you guessed it: expecting grandparents.
My mom told me that she got a catalog for grandparents the other day.
She doesn't know how she got on the mailing list. She doesn't realize that the baby industry knows everything about expecting and new parents, including where the grandparents live.
So, yes, we are already making room for the talking rattles, the bells and whistles playpen (now called a play yard) and the potty seat shaped like a goose.
But I have no idea where my cell phone is.
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