This post should surprise no one. When we found out about the sprout, the first way that I was able to feel connected to the process was to sort out the gadgetry. Cribs and strollers and diapers and bottles and slings and toys and what contains lethal undisclosed chemicals and which things murder puppies during their construction and bed linens and mobiles and so on. You know what I've learned?
The mainstream baby industry thinks we're all from 1950's central Pennsylvania.
For some reason, every item needs to have carved (or molded, if it's plastic) flourishy bits. Wood shall be painted white, any fabric shall have piping on the edges in a) pink or b) blue. Infant toys shall be plastic, and shall represent something only recognizable to adults (so, for example, a tree-themed mobile shall be made up of abstract line drawings of trees). Well, the result of this is that I very quickly went to the "baby underground," and it turns out that it's a lot like the musical or technological underground; that's where all the cool stuff is happening. I'm going to probably do these subtopics in more detail later, but here's another list of what I've discovered.
1) Etsy is the bomb. Seriously. Imagine the best craft show you've ever been to, combined with Amazon. It's glorious. The sprout will not be raised in a world designed by the executives at Graco and Toys 'R' Us (although, I have to say, I do love Toys 'R' Us), but rather by small-scale craftspeople who make things well. This is what the internets ought to be able to give us. Freedom from the big box stores.
2) Cribs are quite a racket. I defy the Buy Buy Baby salespeople to explain to me why their $1000 rectangular crib with the removable side is better than my (sturdier!) $130 rectangular crib with the removable side.
2a) Ikea is an exception to the big box store theory. Inexpensive, and hey, guess what? When the US started stricter safety and environmental regulations on baby stuff a couple of years ago, Ikea didn't have to change anything at all; their testing methods were already past the new regulations.
3) The sprout is going to have some hilarious onesies.
4) Honesty in materials is important. This is actually why the post is titled the way it is. When Jonathan Ive (Apple's head designer) was interviewed about their new laptop designs, what he said was that, in all of their products, they strive for honesty in materials. Don't paint plastic to look like metal; use metal. Essentially, use the characteristics that you need to determine what the thing should be made of. Along those lines, it is encouraging to see what the baby underground is doing with wooden toys. Taking advantage of the fact that wood is really pretty all by itself, is easily sculptable, and that it has greater heft than plastic, it turns out that you can make really satisfying baby toys out of it. I had no idea! And finally, the stroller. If we can manage the cost, our stroller/car seat thing is going to embody this philosophy. Bare metal frame, true one-handed opening and closing, and a giant circle in which to place the seat, rather than two tiny rails that have to be lined up in order to get the thing to fit. If BMW or Apple designed a stroller, this would be it -- although the one major difference is that there's almost no branding anywhere on the thing. W00t!
Power to the baby underground.
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