This is absolutely nauseating.
No need for expectant parents to wade through books or trudge round shops for the latest products guaranteed to turn others green with envy.
Instead, for a fee of up to £2500 ($7100), parents-to-be can sit back while every detail of the pregnancy, their child’s birth and their new family’s early years is organised.
“We will organise everything from sourcing the best baby carrier to creating the baby’s bedroom and arranging parent confidence classes,” said Keely Paice, founder of Baby Planners and the former editor of an international business magazine.
“Once baby arrives, we will hire the best maternity nurse, shortlist nannies and nurseries, advise on feeding patterns and help with establishing routine. In addition, we will be on call by phone and email 24 hours a day for one-to-one advice.” [NZ Herald]
I stared at that article for some minutes with my mind racing and going blank in cycles. I was aghast, I was shocked, I was just totally stunned.
I know it screams CONVENIENCE but babies aren’t objects. This is push-button parenting. This is discouraging parents from properly bonding with their babies by actually learning about them as human beings.
“…we will be on call by phone and email 24 hours a day for one-to-one advice“???
Gee, how can someone who is not physically present to observe a baby give any relevant advice? This is passing on parental responsibility to total strangers who aren’t even there to observe the unique and peculiar needs and circumstances of every child. This is allowing — no, soliciting — strangers to make decisions about your child.
If a couple is too busy to learn about their baby, why have a baby at all?
What some people will do for money will never cease to amaze me.
[tags]Baby+Planners, Keely+Paice, parenting, babies[/tags]
If phone advice is dangerous, even more so is advice from grandparents who raised their kids generations ago when the fad was feeding them on a strict schedule (rather than responding to the infant's hunger, need for comfort, wet diaper cues), or letting them cry it out to exercise their lungs (the lung is not a muscle to be exercised) and crap like that.
We don't pay money, that sort of advice is offered (pushed?) on new parents, who often don't have the confidence to just say no to it and risk offending the in laws. Well meaning, but still dangerous and unwelcome meddling.
to be inconvenienced is part of being a parent!
I wonder if the people who thought of this "business" have kids.
AnP, the founder is a mother of 2. Unbelievable, huh?
We shouldn't blame the business people but the parents who use their services.
I guess (alas) that there is a market for this kind of services. People are more interested in their careers and earning money than of taking care of their kids.
To make my statement even more controversial, I might ask the question if the modern day yayas in the Philippines are not a low key version of outsourced parenting!
Shocking indeed. There are personal shoppers for baby stuff pala. I know their goal is to provide rookie parents with the confidence that their child will have the best of everything but the most important thing is for the father and mother to be properly bonded with the child and to feel confident about their parenting skills. That won't happen with all the hand-holding that this agency will provide.
You know, Sidney, I always thought that the yaya was an assistant rather than a surrogate parent. I'm not an authority on the yaya culture though since I raised my kids without any.
But let me make your last statement even more controversial. For some parents, having a yaya is a status symbol — a statement of what they can financially afford. Hence, the prevalent practice of referring to a househelper as yaya — because yaya makes them "sound" more affluent.
Christianne, you know, shopping for baby stuff was one of the most enjoyable experiences I had before my babies were born. Personally choosing everything was one way of expressing the "specialness" of every child. I don't know why anyone would want to relegate that to strangers.
Ay, really, Sassy! I wouldn't want anyone shop for my kids' things either! Like you, I also enjoyed shopping for my babies before they were born. I even embroidered designs and names on their cloth diapers and teeny-weeny shirts myself. Indeed, only mothers know what's best for their children.
That agency offering "parental assistance services" should be looked into. Who are the people behind it? Are they experts? With regards to giving advice on feeding patterns – I believe this is a very delicate matter that may require professional advice from real physicians and nurses especially when the baby has a certain medical condition. And to think they give advice through phones! Dangerous to me.
It sounds so inhumane to make someone else carry the baby in their womb because of reasons other than not being physically able to. I'm sure one of the reasons also is not wanting to destroy their figures and not having to go through the pain of child birth.
In a way, I feel sorry for the people who avail of these services because they are missing out so much in life. Having a child is such an enriching experience.
Experts? The CEO is a former magazine editor. I guess she’s not technically an expert.