Baby Stupid

The clearest example of commoditization of something which shouldn’t be is the ‘Baby Einstein’ phenomena. It goes something like this:

1. Instead of playing typical baby style music, it is discovered that playing Mozart to a baby increases their intelligence in the long term
   
2. Some company makes baby-style music based on Mozart melodies. All of the beauty and complexity of the music is lost, it is cheap to produce, and people buy it in the millions.
3. Millions of babies are played moronic music branded ‘Baby Einstein’. Millions of families do not listen to Mozart concertos, symphonies, operas etc.

If you haven’t already heard it, this ‘Baby Mozart’ sounds crap. I wouldn’t be surprised if prolonged exposure at an early stage of development made the child profoundly stupid. I don’t know classical music well and I’m not being a snob; I’m just telling you that ‘Baby Einstein’ music is cheaply produced ringtone lift muzak. It is not the same music that was used in the experiments that made babies more clever, and it will not have the same effect.

If you do know some nice Mozart recordings (you know, played by an orchestra) then I’d love to hear any recommendations.

That's the end of my rant about the Baby Einstein Mozart music phenomena. On a more positive note, our little one has now learned to point and we are spending a lot of time trying to tell him what he is pointing at (often: nothing). But it's quite fun that he's now a bit more interactive, if you know what I mean. It won't be long before we can start amazing and confusing him.

Should I love Macro?

So we all know why we should hate Nestle and their evil agenda (www.babymilkaction.org/pages/boycott.html) and Johnson & Johnson make some pretty pernicious products (have you ever checked out their ingredients? Babies beware!) and don’t get me started on Coca Cola and Cadburys and what they are doing in the developing world. But it’s really easy for me to hate big brands like these because I am in the educated middle class. In fact it’s great to hate these companies – I get to feel both intellectually and morally superior about my clever insights into nasty big brands that promote unhealthy over-priced heavily branded aspirational ‘food’, with very little sacrifice on my behalf. I can live without fizzy pop and heavily scented body lotion.

But really, who am I kidding? I am just another marketing category, only mine costs a whole lot more and makes me feel more exclusive. If you wanna be in my club you have to eat really heavy brown bread at four times the price of normal bread, eat mostly organic, healthy, weighty stuff and everything must be pure, pure, pure. Same marketing practice, I’ve just been sold a different story.

A friend (hi Matt) recently had a rant of his own. He hates Macro (an organic supermarket in Australia). He hates the way, as he sees it, that a couple of businessmen are capitalising / exploiting / commoditising the organic movement and charging astronomical prices in order to make a fast buck. And he’s probably right. But the way I see it, at the very least, Macro is helping to promote food that is more environmentally sustainable, better for our bodies and our planet and my son loves the apple and cinnamon purees. So it’s commercialisation, which I don’t normally like, but the cause is honorable or at least just a little bit better than the other options.

Time is fleeting

So much to do, so little time. Here's what I have to fit in to a normal day:

• 0.5 hours in a morning playing with my son
• 0.5hrs getting ready for work
  
• 1.5hrs travel to and from work
• 8.0hrs hours work (inc lunch)
• 0.5hrs cooking
• 0.5hrs eating dinner
• 0.5hrs housework (as if I do that)

... which adds up to 12 hours. With 8 hours sleep (which I don't get), I should have a whole 4 hours lying about waiting for my own personal use. Yet I never seem to have time for anything.

I suppose another hour or two goes to glorious family time, if I get home early enough. Or maybe I have to shop for basics on the way home. And I probably spend 2 hours lying down watching a DVD (we have no broadcast TV, just DVDs) or playing a stupid computer game, or once in a blue moon reading a book. With the odd gap I have then filled my day I suppose. And my week. And my year. And my life.

All the other things get crammed into weekends - maybe some odd jobs, hell, even a little leisure. But really I should be doing something else, something that isn't paid work, that isn't resting to recover from paid work, something positive, creative, satisfying. Maybe it's why people do sports - it's shown to relieve stress and ease depression, and I know from when I used to have a gym membership that exercise makes you feel good. But I'm not the type; the sporty people I met when I was younger have put me off being sporty - this was in England, where sport is a punishment. Hopefully being Australian will provide a different attitude for my son.

So I want to do something more creative with my spare time, so that my son does. I don't want him seeing a worker bee who buzzes out in a morning only to flop down exhausted when he returns. Work is not life, at least my office work isn't. I need to demonstrate that you must find time to pursue other interests. All I remember of my parents was 1) gardening (boring) and 2) a weekend sailing hobby which obliterated all other spare time. It was too monochrome.

So I will change myself for my son's sake. I will fit in some more exercise so he stays active. I will make use of an hour here and there for something that brings soulful rewards.

He's such a positive influence on me.

Welcome to our first blog

Well hello there. It's a new year and we've decided to start a blog - there's quite a few apparently, so ours can't hurt.

Who is "we"? We are a man, a woman and a baby boy living in Sydney, Australia. Our blog will be our first attempt to share our thoughts about life and the world around us. It's a good time to start a blog because parenthood can change your perspective on things - indeed it can be one of the reasons for having a child. Perhaps you can get bored of preening, partying and enjoying all that this privileged modern life can offer. You become a parent, and things look different, things have different reasons and you are aware of different effects. And of course parenthood itself can throw up a few blog-worthy events.

So welcome to our blog. Let's see what happens.