What We Think
When did parenting become a business?
They’re the folks you talk to after you’ve pressed 20 buttons trying to speak to a human being when you call some corporate bureaucracy.
But the person you finally get to talk to isn’t at the corporate headquarters in Little Rock and his name certainly isn’t “Donald,” as he claims. Nope, he’s overseas – probably in India.
It’s called outsourcing, and we’ve all become accustomed to it by now.
Like a stomach virus in a first-grade classroom, outsourcing is now spreading rapidly into other avenues of our society. Recently, I’ve learned about “parental outsourcing” – where parents are hiring others to do what have traditionally been parental chores.
For instance, there is the Booty Camp in Illinois that teaches toddlers to be potty-trained. And no, I’m not making that up – it’s called Booty Camp.
Yes, Booty Camp.
A five-hour session of Booty Camp costs $200. I will now type that again for my own amusement: Booty Camp.
Then there are “personal shoppers” – Moms hire these people for $75 an hour to assist in their daughter’s shopping frenzy.
And then there is SOS (Study and Organizational Skills). You can hire SOS to clean and organize your child’s room while they are away at fencing practice or Booty Camp. Certainly, children can’t be expected to arrange their ascots and jodhpurs by themselves. That should be the work of professionals.
The most intriguing, and perhaps disturbing, of the parental outsourcing services I’ve found is the one where you pay a guy $50 an hour to teach your child to ride a bike.
Aresh Mohit has taught over 1,800 kids to ride bikes since he started the service in New York.
“A lot of parents don’t really get the time to teach their kids,” Mohit said in a Wall Street Journal story. “And if they don’t have the time and they don’t eventually learn those activities, I think they will lose in the long run.”
The appeal to parents is that hiring help averts those nasty confrontations of child-rearing.
Recalling how her husband tried to teach an older child how to ride a bike, Annie Kramer of Armonk, N.Y., said, “It was horrible. Fighting. ‘You’re not listening.’ ‘You’re not paying attention.’”
Oh, yes, the horror. And I imagine it was even worse trying to teach them limo etiquette.
Listen, I’m no expert on parenting. I’m not the best parent, not even the best in my household. I’ve taught one child to ride a bike – my daughter, and it took approximately 12 minutes. I taught her the same way my father taught me, and his father probably taught him. Take off the training wheels, hold the back of the bicycle seat, and guide them down the driveway. When they can manage to balance the bicycle by themselves, you let go (unknowing to them.) In a few seconds, they realize they are riding by themselves and glee ensues. Then they scream, “Look, Daddy, I’m riding by my ...” and they crash into the mailbox.
I don’t fault Mr. Mohit or anyone else for offering these services – it’s simply supply and demand. It’s the “demand” part that’s troubling; that parents are willing to pay someone else to do something that, while tedious, messy, and perhaps maddening, is, in the end, very rewarding for a parent.
Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Teach our children.
When you pay someone to teach your child to ride a bike, it’s the parent that’s missing out.
I do, though, like the sound of Booty Camp. Yes, Booty Camp. Once more for giggles – Booty Camp.
Hiring someone else to potty-train your child: $200 for five hours.
Hiring someone else to shop with your child: $75 an hour.
Hiring someone else to teach your child to ride a bike: $50 an hour.
Teaching your child to ride a bike and watching them scream your name and crash into a mailbox: Priceless.
• Len Robbins is the editor/publisher of The Clinch County News.
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