THE Q&A: SAM APPLE, AUTHOR, FATHER

Becoming a parent is not so simple anymore, particularly if you happen to be a young and neurotic urban professional. Incubating couples must now navigate a staggering number of baby products, all which offer both grand promises (of baby glory) and veiled threats (of parental failure). This volatile mix of manipulative marketing and anxious, affluent parents has helped to give rise to the "baby industrial complex", a market that has enjoyed unprecedented sales in the last decade. Enter Sam Apple: a clever and funny writer and new father. When his wife became pregnant with their first child, he decided to turn his attention to this intimidating world of $700 strollers, prenatal education CDs (which mothers wear around their ballooning waists), hypnotised births and baby yoga. The result is "American Parent", an anthropological tour of the breathtaking absurdities of modern baby-making, mixed with an endearing dose of memoirish dread. ("Do you exercise your nipples?" asks a water-birth specialist of Apple's wife. "It's better to start earlier, but it's not too late.")

Apple is also the author of "Schlepping Through the Alps", about his time following Austria’s only wandering shepherd and Yiddish folksinger, and the editor of the Faster Times.

It is Father's Day in America, so we've decided to pick Apple's brain about what he learned in his tour of American parenthood. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and now has three children (twin girls to go with his inaugural boy), indicating, perhaps, a gluttony for punishment.

More Intelligent Life: Is this a unique moment in parenting, American and otherwise?

Sam Apple: I don't think that it's especially unique with respect to parenting philosophies. Those tend to go in cycles. But I do think that it was a unique moment prior to the economic collapse. I think that parents have probably always bought their babies things they didn't need--the Ancient Egyptians had pull toys that look amazingly like ones you can buy today. But I don't think there was any precedent for the $15,000 cribs or for the $1,200 Italian leather diaper bags. The spending was out of control and newly released numbers suggest that a major correction is now taking place. It seems as though parents are once again thinking about what's really essential, and the more you think about baby products, the more you realise that many of them are either unnecessary or only useful for a very short period. I haven't seen any numbers, but I'm guessing that wipe warmers aren't such a hot item right now.

MIL: At what point did you realise this was a subject ripe for wry scrutiny?

SA: Wry scrutiny is what I do--or, at least, try to do--for a living. And when my wife became pregnant with our first child, I realised that I was not going to be able to think about anything other than babies for a long time. I just figured that I might as well turn my life into my book research.

MIL: Your wife Jennifer sounds like a very patient soul. Did she have reservations about you turning this private milestone into a public document?

SA: Indeed, she did. She is a fairly private person, so it's sort of unfortunate for her that she married a memoirist. I did give her veto power over the manuscript, and she did strike a few lines. But, generally speaking, she was very understanding and even edited the manuscript for me. She made it much better.

MIL: The book is your bemused journey through all the rituals, choices and products of modern parenting--the so-called "baby industrial complex". At what moment did you find yourself tempted to buy (or buy into) something that you know to be absurd?

SA: At almost every moment I was buying things that I thought were absurd. I'm still doing it. I'm not entirely sure how it happens. At one moment I'm complaining about how ridiculous it is that baby products are covered with promises to make your child smarter, and at the next I'm waving one of the products in the face of one of our babies--we have twins girls now--and imagining her accepting a Nobel prize. This problem extends beyond parenting, of course. Knowledge, in my experience, is no match for a deeply ingrained idea.

MIL: In "American Parent", you recount meeting quite a few people who are profiting off the fears of new parents. Which exchange felt the most uniquely ridiculous?

SA: That's a tough one. There were a number of absurd moments along the way. I suppose the most absurd was when the Russian expert in newborn swimming offered to prepare my wife's breasts for nursing. [See Chapter Four: Water Birth]

MIL: Any advice to the fathers of the world, new and otherwise?

SA: Well, I'm always hesitant to give parenting advice, especially since I spent much of the last few years looking sceptically at the advice of others. I really don't think there is one right way to raise children. The frustrating truth is that we still don't know how parents influence the way their children turn out. I think the best advice I received was to focus less on how my interactions with my son will affect him in 20 years and to focus more on whether we have a good and happy relationship right now.

"American Parent", by Sam Apple, Ballantine Books, out now.

~ EMILY BOBROW