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I spent the better half of last Saturday afternoon in a store strictly dedicated to baby supplies. I’d been to this store with my wife on previous weekends, preparing for the arrival of our first child. Every time you walk through their automatic doors you’re hit with the scent of fresh diapers and baby powder, which is quite nice compared to the mixture of blacktop, car fumes, and dense humidity outside. After your sense of smell adapts, you can’t help but notice the sheer magnitude of the physical space. One that is a four-sided building that houses thousands of items geared towards one particular demographic.
Somewhere in the intricate fabric of consumerism, the bright idea of marketing goods to one of civilization’s constant variables took off —those two variables being birth and death.
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I strolled down the wide aisles, admiring displays that showcased the latest innovations. I saw pregnant women leaning on their carts, checking their registry, meandering through the infant size clothes racks. I became envious as I rounded a corner and saw flocks of what I assume were dads-to-be sitting in rows of rockers and gliders. I persevered and kept assisting my wife. I was having visual overload from seeing sippy cups, teethers, bottle brushes, and onesies. My eyes were accosted at every turn by more gadgets and gizmos geared towards babies than I could have ever imagined. This store’s natural flow was set up in a wheel shape, encouraging the tendency of perpetual walking and browsing.
I started to ask myself some questions while deciding between the ABC’s or numbered bath toys (in case you were wondering, we got both). Why did it take so long for a retail store to exist that specializes in carrying only baby supplies? While this concept is extremely modern, I couldn’t decide if this venture of pooled supplies would have been successful years ago. Why hadn’t someone thought of this sooner? It wasn’t long ago that Sears, K-Mart, Wal-Mart, or mom n’ pop thrift shops were your only options. In addition to family and neighborly hand-me-downs, each of these retails stores carried adequate stock to meet your baby raising needs. Somewhere in the intricate fabric of consumerism, the bright idea of marketing goods to one of civilization’s constant variables took off —those two variables being birth and death.
Every person impacted by the birth of a child could be seen browsing the deep aisles of this behemoth retail store.
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I’m generalizing, but I don’t believe parents actively sought the breadth of supplies for their babies 30 to 40 years ago. The supplies their parents used would suffice for their own baby is probably the mantra most parents agreed upon. Flash forward to the last 20 years, and we now have six or seven brands for every given item associated with a baby’s comfort. With the advent of baby-themed stores, there was a marketing boom geared towards the studied, conscientious mother and her newborn. Manufacturers saw this trend as a gold rush for share opportunity and the child-raising pie has done nothing but successfully balloon since.
Did I grow up with a glow-in-the-dark pacifier? Did I nap in a state-of-the-art oscillating rocker? Did my parents use a rubber facet protector in the tub? Was my temperature taken by a simple swabbing of my forehead? I can categorically say no to every single one of these questions. I like to think I still turned out in good form. Come to think of it, all of these advancements are just that, advancements for classic, time-tested methods and concepts. I guarantee that our early colonial ancestors never utilized a Boppy pillow, but if someone would have introduced the soft accessory, mothers probably would have happily accepted.
As our day dwindled on, my wife and I had checked off our list and gathered what we were in search of. I continued to people watch and started to understand something about this store. It wasn’t just for mothers–to-be. Every person impacted by the birth of a child could be seen browsing the deep aisles of this behemoth retail store. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, and co-workers all determined to pick out the latest and greatest receiving blanket or cognitive toy. The fact that babies are born every single day crept into my mind. We paid our bill and made our way to the car with our “necessary” purchases. When I finally sat down, I had no other words than, “I’m in the wrong business.”
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Photo:GettyImages