Consumption is the foundation of parenthood. You have to equip yourself with a fantastic catalogue of stuff if you’re going to be a parent worthy of the name: a cradle, a playpen, a crib, a car seat, a high chair, a carriage, a folding stroller, a baby sling, diapers, clothes, bottle warmers, bottle sterilizers, ointments, creams, baby-wipes, a changing table….Some of these things display a technological refinement that is as impressive as it is useless. Take the baby carriage. The very latest European models are called Vigour, Aéroport, Carrera, Graco, Evenflo, Peg Perego, are offered with six wheels or even eight, inflatable tires, disc brakes, rear parking brakes, ergonomic handlebars…and on and on. They are little miracles. But now they are twice as heavy, difficult to drag onto public transit, impossible to load onto a bike or a scooter. You’ll need a car to lug it all around. Preferably a big one, with airbags for safety. Every little trip turns into moving day, a nightmare of bags and totes.
This is costly, of course, but it is only the beginning. The child eats and soils himself, so you’ll need a washing machine and a dryer and a dishwasher. And you’ll have to get a big supply of plastic diapers (six or seven a day for two or three years) – a genuine environmental disaster, since they aren’t recyclable. The little fellow requires some space, so you’ll have to buy a house, where he’ll have his own room – hopefully he will then be a bit less of a nuisance. Then you’ll have to dress him, and there is an infant style book that the most committed parents take care to follow (buying the best brands, of course). All kinds of articles in women’s magazines, as well as a sort of Vogue for children, called Milk, will help you choose clothes as expensive as those for adults. The dear little thing will wear them for only three months, if ever, but who cares?
For every single thing the child consumer needs, the parents must become consumers as well. But it is the child that is the major target of experts. The newer something is, and the more tawdry, the more she likes it. While still a toddler, she’ll be playing Game Boy, and she’ll have her first computer by the time she’s eight. Technology is no mystery to her. At twelve, she’ll have to have an iPod if she’s not going to get laughed out of the schoolyard. But that’s still not enough. A multifunction digital camera’s next. And a cellphone: according to a British study, two-thirds of kids aged six to thirteen have one. What do they do with it? According to one expert in child marketing (a thrilling profession, I am sure), “All kids want one, even if they seldom use it except for calling home.” Calling home? Don’t kids and parents already have more than enough time…not to speak to each other? And besides all that, kids have terrible taste: ugly shoes in colours inspired by the latest video game, clothes based on some idiotic TV series, trading cards for Pokémon or Warhammer or Yu-Gi-Oh! Welcome to the Kingdom of Ugliness.
All that stuff means wasted money, wasted time shopping for junk, thousands of hours of work spent trying to earn enough to pay for a house big enough to store it all in. Parents have to do all this because every kid’s room is an Ali Baba’s cave, with toys stacked up to the ceiling and an incredible mess of clothes, boxes that have never been opened, gadgets that are broken or obsolete or wonky. In the Land of Merchandise, the child is in its element. It’s great for capitalism – always more things, always more crap you can’t recycle, interchangeable junk soon forgotten and endlessly replaceable…That is exactly what the child wants. As long as there are kids, the absurd world we live in has a future. The human species doesn’t necessarily have one, but that’s another story.