Baby Buying for Baby Bearing

A favourite theme for newspapers is the eye watering cost of having children with the average cost of raising a child from birth to 21 now apparently £230,000, significantly less than the cost of this parking space in London. Somebody obviously needs to tell the Telegraph that the age of majority reduced to 18 some time ago. 

The cost of living is now so exorbitant here that it seems to be having a significant chilling effect on the childbirth rate. If you can’t afford a roof over your own head you are certainly not going to risk losing one over your baby’s. That being said deciding to have a baby following a literal cost/benefit analysis seems to be a sad basis for determining whether to bring a life into the world. 

I knew it was going to be expensive. I know it will be expensive. However none of my planning could have prepared me for the mania induced by the John Lewis baby department or the awesome power of an expectant mother’s nesting instinct. On a recent visit (one of many) I was trying to make eye contact with some of the other first time fathers but all seemed locked in survival mode behind 1,000 yard stares. As I passed one who appeared to have some awareness of the outside world I muttered a rueful ‘Having fun?’ as we passed. He clearly didn’t dare answer leaving it to my wife to toss an admonitory ‘I heard that!’ over her shoulder. 

In fairness to my wife she acceded with alacrity to my suggestion that before splurging we beg and borrow if perhaps not steal. And I have to credit my friends far and wide for their munificence; although when you are in the midst of ante-natal anxiety it is very hard to imagine a day will soon come when being relieved of this paraphernalia will be its own godsend. 

Of the myriad anxieties that beset prospective and new parents the desire to insulate your child’s childhood from the cares and cruelty of the adult world must be the most natural. However for me its nearest rival, the thing that most spurs me to single-handedly dig a moat and construct a spiked palisade, is holding off the dismal day when my child becomes a consumer. 

Which leads seamlessly to the topic of prams. Here I have to disclose my hypocritical underpinning. Mine was a childhood of the Silver Cross perambulator and Nannies' Lawn in Hyde Park. And we are talking 1980 not 1930. I even, briefly, had a Dutch nanny who played the harp outside my bedroom door when I was put to bed: which I realise instantly disqualifies me from having any valid opinion on parenting ever. Even making allowance for all that I am staggered at the cost of prams. 

This BMW tie-in for petrol prats, this overpriced outrage for the fashioninnies and, of course, the Bugaboo, that being your exclamation when you see what buying one does to your bank balance. I don’t know about you but if I’m going to pay upwards of a grand for my baby’s ‘transportation system’ I’m expecting some kind of sedan chair illustrated with Aesop’s Fables wielded by oiled Olympians.

I'm no supporter of infant indoctrination but an early general lesson for my baby will be form follows function and that anyone who spends £3,400 on an Aston Martin buggy is bonkers.