If you haven’t quite decided what your favorite parenting trends of 2009 are quite yet, please keep an open mind. Surfnetparents.com would like to suggest this one, “Nature Vacations”: Note the caption: Apparently, the crazy fad that’s leading American families to conduct public orgies on dude ranch holidays while wearing “innocent” white clothing never dies. […]

» Continue reading "Family togetherness is a trend that makes you wear all-white and behave inappropriately"

After yesterday’s meditation on toddler vehicles, I stumbled on a website hawking retro toddler firetrucks. Sold alongside these tiny $240 emergency vehicles—propelled by pedal power—is a small collection of firefighter garb. As you can see, the options are completely gender-neutral…. Why do little boys get to douse imaginary flames in realistic uniforms, while little girl […]

» Continue reading "Introducing…Princess Firefighter"

This Saturday, the Little Tikes’ Cozy Coupe will be inducted into the Cleveland’s Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum hall of fame. The foot-powered Cozy Coupe—a shoddy, plastic reproduction of Fred Flintstone’s 7,000 B.C. Flintmobile—sold 457,000 units in 2008, outperforming both the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord. What this means: Sooner or later, your baby will predictably […]

» Continue reading "Stone-age vehicle beloved by toddlers outsells real cars!"

Tensions are running high at Perfect Baby Handbook Worldwide Headquarters on Montague Street. It seems our services are no longer needed! At least according to this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, in which Lisa Belkin proclaims that the days of “helicoptering, smothering mothering…overly enmeshed parenting” or “get-them-into-Harvard-or-bust parenting” are numbered. It seems as though the […]

» Continue reading "How the New York Times envisions the “end of over-parenting”"

First, a warning for regular readers, including the anonymous Germans who are already fixating on The Perfect Baby Blog: This post kicks off a new “Ghosts of Perfect Babies Past” series that may unnerve you. It takes a strong constitution, after all, to read about history’s most overwhelmingly splendid infants without comparing them to your […]

» Continue reading "The Ghost of Perfect Babies Past: Sylvia Plath"