NY Times national writer Kate Zernike published a funny, smart review of a new book called Parenting, Inc. by Pamela Paul that examines the phenomenon of well-off parents and the multi-billion dollar industry of doo-dads, devices, and distractions that are marketed as must-haves to anxiety-ridden new parents.

Pushed by a host of factors — the guilt and exhaustion of working parents, the dispersion of family networks that once passed knowledge from generation to generation, the pressure of admissions from preschool to college, and a culture that worships all things celebrity (including its offspring) — we are intimidated or bamboozled into buying all sorts of goods and services that we not only don’t need, but that may harm our children. Slaves to legions of professional advisers and predatory entrepreneurs, we are rendered unable to recall the advice Dr. Spock issued our parents: Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.

Here's a link to a Salon Q&A with author Paul.

Not sure how widespread this phenomenon is outside of the Upper West Side of Manhattan. One would see $800 foldup strollers in pockets elsewhere--Chicago's Northshore, Boston's best suburbs, Orange County, California, Palo Alto for example. So, beyond an opportunity to caricature the rich (though secretly envious), I'm not sure how journalists can turn this trend into education stories. I guess it just shows the vast, vast gulf there is between Head Start parents on the one hand and those who send their privileged children to the preschools that charge more than many colleges on the other.