I don’t enjoy wasting a penny on useless things, especially those things that are marketed to my demographic – a new father, with the means to purchase that wares that people are hocking, to make life better, easier, cleaner, safer or softer, for my family.
My wife and I tried for several years to have a baby. We were not fortunate enough to succeed until 9/9/2009, which turned out to be a very lucky day for everyone involved. It helped that my daughter was born on a lucky day, only because it has been really cool to tell people that my kid was born on 9/9/2009, at 3:29 p.m., 9 days early. I’m a bit of a narcissist anyway. In preparation for the “big day” we purchased dozens of books, registered for every baby-related website out there, and visited every baby section of every store in Los Angeles. After reading most of the books and filling up my email inbox with enough junk to crash a server, I came to the inclusion that almost everything is BULLSHIT.
Not only is most baby advice/stuff complete bullshit, but I’m convinced that literally everything could be marketed as “baby friendly” and people will buy it. I’m not kidding. I have not thought of a way yet, but I’m sure with enough effort, dog food, rat poison and toxic waste could be sold to new moms and dads without too much effort at all. Ok, maybe not everything, but come on, a Wipe Warmer? Seriously? One quick search for “Wipe Warmer” on ONE website, yields 7 different models, with prices varying from $19.99-$29.99 – no kidding. That’s a lot of warm baby poop. Mmmm.
So what prompted the Frugal Father? One day I was shopping for non-baby stuff at our local Target (which happens to be my all time favorite place for baby stuff) and noticed a mom-to-be, scanning items for her gift registry with a friend. Being the nosey person that I am, I overheard them trying to decide which high chair to register for. I interrupted, told them which one my wife and I went with, and why, and then offered advice on any other items the might be curious about. Since my personal research was so extensive, it seemed a shame to let the knowledge go to waste. We spent the next half hour or so, while my wife shook her head from the adjacent department, going from aisle to aisle talking about many of the things that worked and even more of the things that are a waste. Several items were added to the young mom’s registry that day, but many more were taken off by the time we were done. The young friend said to me, “do you have a blog, because I would read it.” And well, here we are.
My advice to you, whoever you are reading this blog, is to take ALL advice with a grain of salt, including mine. I am going to make statements, some readers will agree with, others they will certainly not. That’s ok with me and I invite any and all readers to call me out whenever you feel like it. For this first blog however, the point I really want to get across is this: If there is some advice out there, in the baby universe, that is true and correct, why do there need to be hundreds of baby advice books out there? How many experts on one subject could there be? And, if they are all right, then which do you listen to? I have a difficult time believing that the writers of all this baby propaganda actually believe that their experience is gospel enough that new parents will follow it. I say to you, as I will write about in future blogs, if you read no books at all, you’d be in as good a place as I was after reading over a dozen, and that is no bullshit at all. I promise that I will, to the best of my ability, expose bullshit for what it is, and promote things that will help you and save you money.
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