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The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
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molly pocket
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
So this is what Fraaaaahhnk has been up to then.
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girlleastlikelyto
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
I have one of these -- my husband.

He's been doing the research, picking out strollers and carseats, assembling the baby furniture, decorating the nursery, going to Lamaze class with me, and talking to other parents we know for advice. The baby is totally real to me because it is inside of my body, but this is a way for both of us to feel more connected and prepared. I think if I let someone else do it for us, I would get antsy.
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Peebers says what?
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
I’m a little resentful of all the attention here being directed toward moms. What about dads? Whether it be a gay couple, a single dad, or just a very involved father, men should be given equal treatment, attention, and help as women in parenting so it’s unfair that this service seems to be geared specifically to working moms. The best way for women to obtain equality with men is to also allow men equality with women.
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boxspelunker
12/03/09

@Peebers says what?: A friend of mine was very bothered by that when he became a parent. All of the products were labeled "for Mom" somehow, and he felt kinda left out. It didn't stop him from being a great father, but he did complain about the constant barrage of "mothers know best" crap that automatically excluded him, and how women would correct how he interacted with his son, because he couldn't possibly know what he was doing. :/

I think the prenatal planning stage is the best time to start involving the father-to-be, as well as the mother-to-be, assuming those are the parents, that is. Everyone should pitch in.
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Beets.Go.On is the Fat Yogini
12/03/09

@Peebers says what?: yes. That is one of my major soap boxes, too. My brother-in-law is a single dad to 3 year old boy and he isn't taken seriously anywhere he goes for kid-related services, even though he is a great dad and wants the best for his kid, like any loving mom would. The dichotomy of treatment between moms and dads is shocking and it certainly doesn't promote an environment for men to want to to step up and be good dads. There are no external support systems or popular discourse on the matter and that really makes a difference for the young single dad flying blind.
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Wandell
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
.... I like it! What's wrong with learning from an expert? That is what we go to college for, no? To learn from people who have "been there, done that"?

Also, cutest baby ever!
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NellMood
12/03/09

@Wandell: I don't think hiring someone to buy your layette is really comparable to attending college. Baby experts aren't a new thing, but this type seems more interested in telling people what to buy than in teaching people child-rearing techniques.
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andromedeia
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
I am excited to have kids and raise them in the most low-maintenance way possible, which is what my parents did with me and my siblings. Hand-me-down cribs and strollers, secondhand clothes that can be spit up on and ruined regularly. We had lots of pot-banging and crayons rather than DVDs and expensive crap. It's so not worth it to spend all that money when kids break and ruin most of their stuff anyway (which is as it should be).
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BreeDMN
12/03/09

@andromedeia: Nothing against hand-me-downs, but just be careful that things like cribs meet current safety standards. A lot of older baby equipment doesn't.
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andromedeia
12/04/09

@BreeDMN: Oh, definitely. I just mean ones that are only a few years old- from my cousins who are only three or four years older. So they were fairly new. Certainly not 1940s-era lead-based baby cages, or something :)
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salthegeek
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
All I can think about after seeing that pic is that kid has awesome eyes.
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lalaland13
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
My mom is a strong powerful woman because she was basically a single mom with a jerkface father who did everything in his power to undermine her and screw with her head.

I can sort of understand this idea, and I like this idea that women don't have to just tough it out on their own because if they ask questions OMG Bad Mother! But I hope like heck my mom is still around if and when I have a kid. And she'd be awesome at helping me, because she's already awesome with her "grandkitties" and with telling me it doesn't matter if I don't want kids anytime soon. Or ever.
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lostinalunchbox
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
Or, for anyone who isn't an only/eldest child AND the first in their peer group to have a baby - ask your freakin' friends and family for advice.
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lostinalunchbox
12/03/09

@lostinalunchbox: must be noted, for everyone who is saying this is a needed service: these services are all about helping you figure out what to buy and how to spend money (besides on them), mostly before the baby is born. They are not offering anything to help you raise the baby or figure out what to do when you get that sucker home. All y'all equating this to having a lactation consultant, they aren't offering to help with that - they're only going to tell you which expensive lactation consultant to hire, and charge you hansomely for the service of providing a referral. Doesn't matter what brand of wipe-warmer or stroller you have, the scary thing about being a parent is what the hell to do when the kid won't stop crying, or won't eat, or has a fever. If the baby concierge is going to let me wake 'em up at 3am with THOSE questions and tell me what to do, then I will conceed that this is a genuinely helpful service, not just asinine luxury.
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NellMood
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
I don't think this is so surprising when you look at the history of child rearing- this stuff has been professionalized for centuries. As long as women are told that what they're doing isn't good enough there will always be experts swooping in to tell them how to be better.
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dkissam
12/03/09

@NellMood:
Well, I would've found it helpful, but that's because I had no positive model from childhood and was acquainted with no people who have parented other people with whom I could communicate IRL. The few people I tried to talk to acted like I was an alien idiot, and it's hard to say "I was unmothered, I have no model and no family, no female friends with kids, and actually had no idea that they came around to the bed in the hospital to make newborn pictures so I had no checkbook, and also didn't know I was supposed to have a pediatrician lined up before the birth, because the things that apparently are *obvious* are the things the internet does not tell you." A service that would've provided info and that I could've asked and just gotten a goddamn straight answer with no weird looks would've been awesome.
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NellMood
12/03/09

@dkissam: I think there can be a lot of really hard stuff to navigate with new babies. I don't have any children, but I've worked as a nanny for several families with newborns, and it's not all super intuitive. It does seem like these baby planners are mostly approaching this from a consumer angle, and I'm not so sure that you need to hire someone for that information. It is hard to figure out, for example, what the most comfortable baby carrier is, but I think that's the kind of thing you could read reviews for.
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Beets.Go.On is the Fat Yogini
12/03/09

@dkissam: I am right there with you. My mom was institutionalized for depression most of my childhood and my dad was an abusive drunk. I was left completely alone for the vast majority of my childhood and everything I know about being a woman and those *obvious* things you're talking about, I learn from pop culture and you ladies on Jezebel. If I can afford a service like this when I have kids, I will absolutely pay for it, because I know I will need guidance and it's easier to pay someone for a straight answer than get the weird, judgmental looks.
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SunburnedCounsel
12/03/09

@NellMood: While I agree with you, I just did this (prepare for a baby), and "just reading the reviews" can be a horrible and time consuming process, with the added stress of having everyone, their mother, and the random lady in the line at the grocery store tell you that you are wrong once you pick. Some people really enjoy culling through all the reviews and price comparing and reading the new recalls etc., but for me it was pretty stressful and unenjoyable, especially since we were trying to work as much as possible in preparation for parental leave which left navigating online reviews pretty low on my interests. But since everything is such a freaking investment (especially if you anticipate it being the first of several children), you don't really want to pick higgly-piggly either and end up having to get a new stroller/car seat/set of bottles in three years.
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lisas
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
Hm. I read this a couple of times and here's something I get out of this article that I think is a good thing: Recognition that this kind of "motherhood" work is work.

The article shows a silly side of this notion, but it still shows it and I'll take what I can get.
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funzette
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
Best, Perfect, Must-Have, Supermom.
Exhausting.

Donald Winnicott, an old-timey child psychoanalyst, talked about the "good enough mother", someone who loves her child, is attune to it physically and emotionally, but doesn't - can't! - satisfy all of its needs immediately and completely. It gives baby room to adapt and grow and manage its emotions, and the occasional failures facilitate transition to the external world.

I see a link between the "perfect mom" of Winnicott's time and the "supermom" today. He felt that a perfect mom, who met her baby's needs constantly and immediately, didn't give the baby space to grow, and subjects herself to unnecessary anxiety and guilt.

I wonder if the supermom movement is a corollary - the fear of not giving the child the very best (most expensive?) of everything (toys, opportunities, education, carseats, nannies) is a way of managing our own anxieties but loses sight of being just "good enough" - that is, giving the child space and opportunity to grow and adapt. So the stroller is less comfortable, or the nursery isn't top of the line, or sometimes the baby is banging on a pot instead of watching Baby Einstein. As long as the baby is safe and loved, that's enough.
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RedLantern
12/03/09

@funzette: Yes, there is an enormous amount of pressure to do everything exactly right. I feel like there is a lot of talk about how we put too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect, but at the same time every imperfection is noticed and commented on--why else would spectators feel the need to get worked up about Suri's bottle? So we all strive for perfection, most of us come up short, and even those few who seem to manage perfection are judged, since perfectionism is, after all, pathological and damaging to children.

But I feel a lot guiltier when my son is watching Baby Einstein (or at our house, Sesame Street), than banging on a pot :-) What the hell kind of mother lets a 2-year-old watch TV?
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BreeDMN
12/03/09

@RedLantern: Speaking as a "good enough mom", both of mine spent many hours watching Sesame, Barney and Nickelodeon, and they are doing just fine academically and socially at the ages of 20 and 16. It saddens me to see the ongoing guilt heaped upon women about not being the perfect mother, and that so many intelligent women buy into it.
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boxspelunker
12/03/09

@RedLantern: I wouldn't feel guilty about it. The most important thing, in my opinion, is that kids have a sense of being loved and having security, and that they can trust their parents. That'll come into play more when he's older, probably, but for now, if he doesn't have to think about or wonder if you care, he's a happy kid and he'll be fine.
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deeemer
12/03/09

@BreeDMN: I grew up watching Sesame Street. Have you seen what it looks like today? Awful. In general, I feel like television for kids has gone wayyy down. It doesn't stop me from letting my kids watch it, but I have time to supplement with books and museum trips. Many moms just don't have that kind of time.

But that's just an aside.

I once commented to a friend of mine that instead of buying a $900 stroller, I would buy something the entire family could use, and for longer. I was told off, the woman saying, "Oh no! I LOVE to spend money on the kids! I hate spending money on myself! I think they should be the ones with the best, don't you think?"

Sigh. Buy stock in Bugaboo.
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BreeDMN
12/04/09

@deeemer: And to think that my in-laws thought $240 for a stroller in 1989 was outrageous. That was their gift to their firstborn grandchild. It survived two kids but I don't think it would have survived a third.

It's too bad about Sesame St. I used to enjoy watching it with my kids. Some of my favorite segments were one with Robin Williams explaining why a shoe is not a living thing and another with various celebrities of the day singing Put Down the Duckie.

I agree about books and museums. Even if you work you have to make the time. We went (still do even in high school) to museums on weekends along with many other families. Cheap, educational and fun family time in our experience.
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deeemer
12/04/09

@BreeDMN: Yes. I don't care how expensive your stroller is, no stroller has been built to survive my kids. And two! Whoa.
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Flackette Goes Retro
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
So first you hire a college application coordinator to get into the right school, then you meet a guy there and hire a wedding planner for the big bash. A couple of years later you hire a baby planner. Once the baby is there, you hire a nanny. When they reach school-age you hire tutors to go with the nanny. Also music, dance and private sports coaches. Then when they're in high school you get them their own college app coordinator so they can start the cycle themselves. Meanwhile, you utilize a funeral coordinator to plan your own final society bash.
See? It's possible to outsource your entire life!
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Maritsa
12/03/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: OMG, you forgot the nursery-school coach to get your kid into the right nursery school, because without that, she'll never go to Harvard!!
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funnyface
12/03/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: Don't forget the matchmaker to help you meet the guy.
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winner
12/03/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: I need a planner planner.
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sumotuwe
12/03/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: If only assisted suicide were legal, the whole thing could be cradle-to-grave outsourcing!
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cajoje
12/03/09

@winner: Oh, Lord, I bet that's next.

"You're too busy to coordinate all your coordinators. Let us handle the details you don't have time for (Which, face it, is all of the decisions you'll ever have to make. Who has time for independent thought?) We will find you the top-knotch planners for every important stage of your life (We call them 'categories'.) Remember our motto: 'Cradle to Grave': We Got It Covered."

Run with that baby. We'll make a million.
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winner
12/03/09

@cajoje: Perfect.
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NellMood
12/03/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: My commenting planner told me to say that you're being really negative.
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cajoje
12/03/09

@winner: I will get my Jez Thread Comment Coordinator to respond to you with my thanks and regards for your input. Cheers.
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winner
12/03/09

@cajoje: Hi. This is winner's Jez Thread Comment Coordinator. I have reviewed your comment and will send your Jez Thread Comment Coordinator an Outlook meeting request so that we can coordinate your regards.

Best,
w's jtcc
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Dorawithanattitude
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
"A mother today looks a lot different than a mother 15 years ago...She is powerful. She is strong. She is knowledgeable. Women today know it's OK to ask for help. That's a victory for all of us.

Oh really? I managed 18 years ago to bear a child, work full time and continue to pump and nurse until her first birthday. I really don't know if I'm offended or amused. What mothers in this country NEED is protected mandatory maternity leave and affordable child care. Take your thousand dollar stroller and shove it- my kids are turning out just fine without all that crap in their infancy.
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labeled
12/03/09

@Dorawithanattitude: Heh. I had my first 18 years ago also... see my response below.
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Beets.Go.On is the Fat Yogini
12/03/09

@Dorawithanattitude: yeah seriously. That sentence offended me for all of the generations of strong women that came before 1995. What about women during the depression? What about the suffragettes? 1995 is such an arbitrary cutoff point and I don't get what was so special about that year.
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Sev
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
I read "baby planners" in the headline and interpreted the meaning as "a woman or a couple who plans to have a baby. Many base this decision on income level, status, job security, maturity, etc."

I thought - YES! People who plan to have children when the time is right for them ARE a victory for all of us!

Then I read the article. I haz a sad now.
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Norma Neufner Lady Officer
12/03/09

@Sev: I thought the exact same thing! And had the exact same reaction. Can we both haz that sad?
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Furface
12/03/09

@Sev: Yeah... I thought it had something to do with actual family planning.
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banana_grabber
12/03/09

@Sev: I thought that too. I use the fertility awareness method as birth control and love the planning power it gives me.

The actual idea of baby planner, I don't like so much.
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boxspelunker
12/03/09

@Sev: I was hoping so. Wanted kids are probably the best off, even if they're not planned, but I think planning to have kids, if you are able to do so, can help everyone prepare for the expansion of the family in a positive way. Planned-for children are also probably more likely to be wanted, so there's that.

Generalizations!
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anteup
12/03/09

In reply to The Baby Planners Are "A Victory For All Of Us"
I don't even like kids and I'd take this job in a heartbeat. I looooove researching stuff to buy. LOVE ITTTT. But, I also realize that not everyone likes doing that as much as me.

I like doing it so much that I'll research stuff I have no intention of buying. Ever.
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winner
12/03/09

@anteup: Hahaha! I love people like you! I hate researching stuff to buy so I either read two Amazon reviews or follow the axiom "you get what you pay for" and buy the most expensive version I can afford.
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