After sharing the pain with Hertzberg and Franklin in the New Yorker, I turned to the Caitlin Flanagan article to boost the flagging spirits. Flanagan has the parenting/mom beat for the New Yorker and is often amusing.

Flanagan writes about all the crapola being marketing to young parents today. Toilet paper savers, aluminum framed strollers, diaper cans that turns stinky diapers into one long sausage roll. All those most ESSENTIAL items are pushed on unsuspecting young parents armed with a radar gun and the Baby Bargains book.

She mentions that annoying woman who invented the toilet paper saver and was in every newspaper last week. See, all you stay at home moms, look at the millions you could make in your spare time with just a little bit of gumption. Turn off that soap opera and put your thinking caps on! Of course, those articles sent me into a tailspin, because I have accomplished little of my own work in the past couple of months.

Flanagan disappoints by not pushing her article past the recitation of ridiculous products. She never says why parents are eating up those baby wipe warmers and plastic baby tubs that are used for two months and then left by the side of the road for the trash.

Why do you think parents buy this crapola? What do you think is the most ridiculous baby product today? I nominate the stroller that pipes in music for the baby (and, yes, I’m mocking you, Allison).