Once, in an era known as pre-2007, you could raise children without an iPhone. This is no longer possible, implies Time magazine, with this list of hot iPhone apps for “new moms.” The “BabyCam” app, which tops the list, solves a timeless problem: Getting your baby to smile for the camera long enough to take […]

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“My child must succeed! I will give her every opportunity to succeed! She will learn to write tricky words like ‘constitution’ in a lovely, calligraphic hand, but her vocabulary will never include ‘failure’!” It was such modest claims that inspired me to satirize competitive parenting in The Perfect Baby Handbook. Now, it turns out, that […]

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Have you seen this t-shirt? Say, blowing down a street in Brooklyn? Or on the back of mischievous, Size-5 thief? Or somewhere in my friend Ariel’s house? If so, please grab it and forward immediately to Perfect Baby Handbook Worldwide Headquarters on Montague Street so I can restore it to Ariel’s son Austen, the birthday […]

» Continue reading "The mystery of the disappearing birthday present"

Everyone loves a clairvoyant. Especially when she predicts the future with as much bluster and certainty as Penelope Trunk, who pens a syndicated business column called the “Brazen Careerist”—and focuses her forecasting on one’s own beloved child. Trunk’s most recent projection, “What Generation Z will be like at work,” is irresistible. In a nutshell, it […]

» Continue reading "Why your baby will grow up to be a Scary Information Glutton"

Cozy-looking, isn’t it? Conceived by Harvard behavioral psychologist, BF Skinner, for his second child, Deborah, this “crib” was born of the best intentions. Observing the heavy toll his wife’s parenting regimen took on her, Skinner set out to simplify it. Though not by pitching in himself… He created this baby-sized room, known as the “Baby […]

» Continue reading "The hottest baby invention of 1945: The lab-rat crib!"