The Mom Crowd

If you are interested in the marketing perspective of baby products, then Pamela Paul’s “Parenting, Inc.” is a great read for you. The tagline on the front of the book reads, “How we are sold on $800 strollers, fetal education, baby sign language, sleeping coaches, toddler couture, and diaper warmers – and what it means for our children.” The author shares her own anecdotes while breaking down the history of various baby phenomenons such as baby mega stores, edutainment, and the InStyle-ization of parenthood.

The book begins by tackling the question of – Should the decision of having a child be based a family’s financial status? Then Paul breaks down the cost of having children in today’s world versus the world of our parents. Apparently costs started rising in the 1980s when baby boomers entered parenthood.

The first chapter titled “The Mother Load” is an interesting look into how baby mega stores like Buybuy Baby and Babies R Us came into existence in the 1990s. According to the book the “ ‘mom market’ is said to be 1.7 trillion, with the toy industry for babies birth to age two alone generating $700 million a year.” It is not surprising to hear these numbers if you have ever walked into the toy section of Target or a Babies R Us.

I found the history recount of baby formula fascinating in the second chapter titled, “Target: Parents.”  German chemist, Justus von Liebig, was the first to create a baby formula in 1867.  The product grew from that year forward and really took off in the 1950s. In 1974 deceptive marketing practices such as sales people dressing up as nurses in Africa to promote the product were uncovered and many people boycotted Nestle. In response to the boycott Nestle came out with the DHA/ARA supplement in formula as a new way to market its formula. The chapter recognizes the benefits of formula while spilling its history and how it is marketed to parents.

The third chapter breaks down the Baby Einstein phenomenon and how toys and television shows are created to educate children. Basically, parents shouldn’t really expect shows and toys to educate our kids and parents are the best teachers. Even though some parents feel inadequate and don’t feel like they are doing a good job, they truly are the most effective teachers that a child has.

The ‘Pampered’ chapter explains how the price point of strollers and designer cribs were raised and the media’s growing interest in celebrity babies. Particularly intriguing is how celebrities are given tons of free products in hope that they will be photographed by the paparazzi. So when they are seen with a certain stroller it may not be the safest or best product available, it may have been the closest one to the door before they left. This chapter also gives us insight into the new trend of junior country clubs.

Other chapters cover the marketing behind baby classes, outsourcing parenthood, birthday party trends, the benefits of a hyper-marketing culture, and so much more.

The author concludes by stating that we need to teach our children that their worth is not derived from material things. Children will benefit more from what we deny them and teaching delayed gratification rather than buying all the newest and greatest products. Overall, ‘Parenting, Inc.’ is current, well written, very well researched and easy to read if you are interested in the subject matter.

It seems that I’ve been catching a lot of flicks lately that involve mother-child relationships.  I guess it’s a common theme in storytelling: the power of a mother’s love, and the ties that bind a mother and her child together.   

If you like watching movies and spending time with your mom, here are some movies you might enjoy seeing together for a moms’ night in:

• Under the Same Moon.  Recently released on dvd, this is about a young boy separated from his mother.  He’s in Mexico with his ill grandmother, and she’s in California trying to make a new life for them.  Eventually, she was hoping she could have him join her in the States.  This story is centered around current immigration issues and the hardships of poor families trying to survive in an unfriendly culture.  The little boy is adorable, and I enjoyed watching him interact with everyone he came into contact with.  It’s An American Tail for grownups.  Here’s the trailer:

• Mamma Mia!  Also just released on dvd.  How many of you went and saw this in the theater?  Were there any men anywhere?    I saw this on a girls’ night out and couldn’t stop laughing.  It’s definitely fun and silly, perfect for a night with your musical-loving mom.  A friend of mine recently shared with me that she watched this two times in a row with her mom, using the dvd’s sing-along feature.  Mother-daughter bonding at its finest!    Here’s a brief bit from a touching scene with Meryl Streep (as mother Donna) and Amanda Seyfried (as daughter Sophie):

• The Visitor.  Another tale of immigration woes, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie starring Academy Award-nominee (for this role) Richard Jenkins.  He befriends a Syrian musician named Tarek, who is detained in New York City for his illegal status.  Halfway through the movie, Tarek’s mother appears, and her character is a gentle study in the measure of a mother’s love.  If you can’t see this with your mom, see it with anyone.  It’s very, very good.  See from the trailer, which makes me cry:

• The Mirror Has Two Faces.  Ever since I’ve started writing for The Mom Crowd, I’ve looked for a way to mention this oldie-but-goodie directed by and starring Barbra Streisand.  I watch it about once a year.  Barbra is Rose Morgan, a single and brilliant literature professor who falls for a geeky, handsome math professor on the same New York campus (I think it’s Columbia U.).  Lurking in the background of this experimental relationship is Rose’s mother, played by the legendary Lauren Bacall (Academy Award nominee for this role).  The mother-daughter relationship in this story is fascinating to me – Bacall is all high-fashion glamour, and Rose is the “ugly-duckling” daughter at odds with her.  Rose’s transformation from an insecure lonelyheart into a self-confident woman hinges on a single key scene with her mom.  Watch for it.  Here’s another favorite scene, both for the mother-daughter dynamic I’ve described and because Jeff Bridges is so sweet in it (first 3 minutes):

What are your favorite mother-child movies?  Any favorites you like to watch with Mom?  Are you now humming “Mamma Mia”?  Is it weird that Pierce Brosnan appears in two of the four movies I’ve listed?

Stop by HomeMakerBarbi.com and check out my guest post about Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). Danelle has a fantastic site full of useful information! Be sure to check it out!

Since we’ve been having such good discussions on grocery budgets and planning I thought I’d extend our conversation a bit and talk about food for our families.  What do you put in your grocery cart?  Where do you eat when you go out?  How do you know what the best food picks are for your kids?

Did you know that our children are 4 times MORE likely to be obese than we were as kids?

Did you know that we average drinking 450 calories a day?  That is twice as much as 30 years ago and it packs on the pounds too!

Did you know that 1 in 3 kids born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime?

Did you know that the average American consumes 82 grams of added sugars every day which contribute to an extra 317 (empty) calories to our diets?

 I learned all this from the book Eat This, Not That For Kids! By David ZincZenko.

This has got to be one of the most enlightening books on eating for families and kids.  As I was reading the book I kept telling my husband all the interesting facts in it.  One of the biggest points the book makes is that one of the major (if not BIGGEST) problems is how we are duped when it comes to the marketing strategies that food companies use to get us to buy our products.  Not only that, but all the unnecessary additives like High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) add empty calories and adjust our palettes to preferring sweet things.  Which then makes us consume more sugar.  We have to become sleuths and read the labels so we know what we are really getting when we buy food at the store.

The book is very encouraging about eating the rainbow when it comes to foods and explains all the good aspects of the red, yellow, orange, blue/purple, and green foods.  Even though we know that eating carrots will help our eyes, I think it is a good reminder to read about all the other benefits of the fruits and veggies out there. 

The chapter in the book called Eat Out, Eat Right will blow your socks off! Did you know that restaurants make up only  ¼ of our meals but account for more than 1/3 of our calories?

Did you know that the typical serving size for soft drinks has increased by 49 calories, French fries 68 and hamburgers by 97? 

The eating out chapter has a list of the top 20 WORST foods for kids to eat at a restaurant.  Reading the caloric intake is scary. Just for a quiz (and you can check my answer in the book) which is better to eat at Arby’s?

An Arby’s Melt with roast beef smothered in cheddar OR the Roasted Turkey and Swiss sandwich?

If you said the Turkey Sandwich you were wrong!  That sandwich has 708 calories, 30g fat and 1,677 grams of sodium.  The Arby’s Melt has 303 calories, 12 g fat and 921 g sodium. Blow me away!

 It doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?  When it comes to eating out, it is more difficult to know what is in our food.  The bread for the sandwich has a lot of added sugar in it and is smothered in mayo.  This chapter will amaze you with some of the better food choices not only for your kids, but for you as well.  It also has a section with generic menus for all the different kinds of restaurants (diner, Italian, Mexican, pizzeria etc).  Very helpful.

The chapter that covers the supermarket is very helpful as well.  It goes through how to look at the labels and provides instruction on what to avoid.  The book makes the point that the fewer ingredients in it the better.  We usually shop the perimeter of the store and don’t spend too much time in the middle isles, but I still found a lot of the information in this chapter helpful. 

For example, did you know that organic ketchup has 3X more lycopene (cancer fighting agent found in tomatoes and watermelon) in it than non-organic? I usually don’t purchase organic foods (even though I’d love to!) due to the expense but I will probably start buying organic ketchup. The way the book works is that the left side of the page has all the “Eat This” food and the right side has the “Not That” foods.  It is so cool because it compares a lot of the major brands for you with the most common kinds of foods we buy: cereal, yogurt, granola bars, breakfast condiments, bread, chips, deli meats, crackers, cookies, juice, grains, soups, canned foods, frozen foods, ice cream. 

The next chapter covers School Cafeterias and vending machines.  It bothers me that our schools are only increasing the problem of childhood obesity by having junk food available in the cafeterias and vending machines.  I don’t think it will change until we, the parents, start demanding healthier options for our children.  The statistics in the school food section was scary! However, it is good to know that there are some better choices out there.  It does inspire you to pack those lunches, which brings us to the next section.  He has some really helpful suggestions for packing lunches and dinner meals.  There are even some recipes! 

I bought this book last Sunday and have been devouring it ever since.  Then on Tuesday or Wednesday I happened to catch part of Oprah and the author of this book was on the show talking about it.   Keep your eye out for this book! (There is also an Eat This, Not That Survival for the Supermarket that is really good too!)

We eat pretty healthy at our house but there are still ways we can improve and I am definitely taking that book with us when we do go out to eat at a restaurant!  I want to teach my kids how to make healthy choices.  It does feel like an uphill battle sometimes but it is worth it.  It makes me so sad when I see how much heavier children are today than they were when I was a kid.  And to hear about all the major health problems that children are dealing with because of obesity makes my heart break.  I don’t want to cast blame because I think there are many factors that are contributing to such a huge epidemic—I’m just glad to know that we can do something about it.

I have always been blessed with an easy-going and happy baby until this past week when Godzilla Toddler appeared in the body of my sweet 20 month old daughter. Last week Annabelle got the 24-hour stomach bug that was going around. We cuddled and held her for 2 days caring for her every need. Then when her health returned she emerged into a brave new world where parents don’t hold toddlers in their laps while they eat and booster seats are hot molten rocks not to be sat upon.

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