Gadget Inspector: The Mother of Invention Fairs
We process the ABC Kids Expo in Vegas.
by Sam Apple
February 27, 2007
Perhaps not surprisingly, the ABC Kids Expo is also about moms. I met a number of fathers at the show, including the guy who had invented a jock-shaped sponge to prevent his son from urinating on him, but the majority of the inventors were mothers and most of them told me a different version of the same story: they had been taking care of their own children when they found themselves in need of a product that didn't yet exist. A mother who didn't like her children grabbing public toilets had dreamed up Potty Mitts. A mother who had dropped her baby in a swimming pool was selling waterproof baby carriers, and so on. There is even a company, Mom Inventors, Inc., that appears to be specifically created to exploit this new pool of entrepreneurial talent.
A trade show is not a good place to think, but when I returned from Vegas, I continued to ponder the questions that I brought home — along with a pocketful of Preggie Pops. I wondered if parents and babies were really better off with so many different gadgets at their disposal. One mother I met not long after the show told me that she had been so overwhelmed while shopping for her newborn at BuyBuy Baby that she had an anxiety attack in the store. Was there such a thing as too many products?
I posed this question to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, author of Touchpoints: YourT. Berry Brazelton said that parent consumerism can be problematic when products begin to interfere with the parent-child relationship. Child's Emotional and Behavioral Development, and perhaps the most influential American baby expert since Dr. Spock. In a telephone interview, Brazelton said that parent consumerism can be problematic when products begin to interfere with the parent-child relationship. "I think it's some sort of substitute for what the parents wish for and what the baby wishes for, which is more interpersonal interaction," Brazelton said.
I knew what Brazelton meant. I am home with my son, Isaac, two days a week, and during those days I inevitably find that there are times when I abandon Isaac to his exersaucer — a circular, plastic device that keeps a baby propped on two feet and surrounded by toys. 
The ITZBEEN Baby Care Timer, a handheld device that makes it easy to keep track of your baby's last meal, nap and diaper change would have been extremely useful during Isaac's first months.Sometimes I feel guilty about using the exersaucer for a break, but, at the same time, it's hard for me to imagine what I would do without it. Because, while it's true that some products serve as substitutes for human contact, it's also true that most modern parents, separated from their extended families, have little help. And, much as I genuinely love it when Isaac drools on my face and tries to claw my eyes out with his clammy hands, I need some time every day during which my eyes are not being clawed out.
Dr. Harvey Karp, author of The Happiest Baby on The Block and famed baby soother, sounded a bit less concerned than Brazelton about the proliferation of baby products. "You have to separate the wheat from the chaff," Karp said. "I'm sure there are too many products, but I think the marketplace is pretty efficient at helping parents find their way between what's useful and what's not."
Karp's response reminded me that, for all the products that struck me as bizarre at best and junk at worst, I also saw a number of new items at the ABC Kids Expo that looked promising. The ITZBEEN Baby Care Timer, a handheld device that makes it easy to keep track of your baby's last meal, nap and diaper change, would have been extremely useful during Isaac's first months. The Binky Buddy, a small strip of soft fabric that helps keep a pacifier from falling out of a baby's mouth, seemed a vast improvement on my idea — dreamed up one sleepless night — of taping Isaac's pacifier to his face with Band-Aids
The ABC Kids Expo may be a sign of an industry expanding to the point of farce, but it's not yet time to write the whole thing off. Somewhere between portable cardboard toilets and death, there is hope.
©2007 Sam Apple and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Sam Apple's work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, and Slate.com, among many other publications. His first
book, Schlepping Through the Alps, was named a finalist for the PEN America award for a first work of nonfiction. In 2005 he received the
annual Faux Faulkner award. Apple's new book, American Parent, is on sale now. |
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