I've been wanting to write this blog for a long, long time. You know it's so amazing but when you become parents -- let's leave the emotions out for now -- it is no doubt a turning point in your life in many ways but while you may have bargained for the extra dosh you will need to spend on diapers and baby food what you have definitely not realized is that suddenly your profile has also changed and you are now a new target audience. The minute you cross over from DINK into a parent, the market wakes up to your spending potential. So one month into motherhood I start getting phone calls badgering me to take a look at developmental books from Time Life. Now I know Time Life is good but do the distributors really think that when you have a month-old new born in the house, your brains are up to listening to a talk on brain development? It's your own brain that's gone into a shell at that point and needs resurrection, sleep deprived that it is. And you just want the baby to stop crying with colic pain and go to sleep so shelling out 33,000 or 17,000 or some such astronomical sum is not your priority. After you've sat through the talk -- and now you're thinking Oh my God is my baby really grasping this much this fast -- you begin to be assailed by pangs of remorse. Shit I should have bought it. I could have done the EMI. Should I be reading bedtime tales already, maybe I should.
Just as the piercing wails of the baby bring you back to reality and you forget about Time or Life, the distributor starts his or her follow up calls. It takes a month for you to finally say the word. NO.
Then start the door-to-door salespeople. How much ever you may try and hide it, they just know that there is a baby in da house. And then it's Grolier or Disney or some other learning development company. My husband has actually bought an encyclopaedia for my daughter which I swear she will not use until she is probably 10.
After a few months, they all stop calling and then the play schools start. I wonder who shares our numbers with them, I'm assuming the hospital. Mother's Pride actually sent me a prospectus (unasked for), invited me to a parenting seminar (which I did not attend), and then offered me admission (wow!!!!). I asked the woman if she knew how old my kid actually was.

Me: isn't the age for admission around two and a half?
Salesperson from Mother's Pride: Yes
Me: Do you know that my child is just five months old?
Salesperson from Mother's Pride: Yes, but we are offering admission to you in advance. You can come and see our campus and register your child.
Me: I don't even know where I will be two years from now. What if I am not in town anymore?
Salesperson from Mother's Pride: Then we will deduct a nominal amount and refund the rest.

They have answers to every question. After I said no, they still kept calling me and I finally lost it and told the woman to strike me off their database. I told her I would report them to the cops if they kept calling. They haven't called since, but they are tenacious. Every now and then a pesky little SMS from Sudha Gupta of Mother's Pride will creep into my inbox with some stupid parenting tip. And to think of it, when I wasn't a parent, I used to listen to her tips on a radio channel. Now, they are just plain irritating. Her company is just a plain old marketing company like any other. The play school is a euphemism.

Of course add to all this the high chair, the cot, the swing, the bouncy, the pram, the car seat and the salesperson knows he has in you a bank. Plus with all the birthday parties that you now so magically get invited to, the toy shop is your new sin store. All you do is find yourself buying birthday presents and small presents -- just when you drop in you know -- and of course toys for your own little one. And it goes on and on. You are now entrenched as a spending powerhouse.

have fun. tra la