What I hate about the internet, part I

The internet can be a force for good. For example, today I set myself four goals: do the thirty-minute circuit from “Super Fit Mama” (my latest attempt to avoid becoming a complete sloth), have no more than 50 percent of my diet come from sucrose, decide which child seat(s) to order, and start the process of getting little Julia on a wait list for day care. This last goal was easily accomplished, thanks to the internet: I learned all about the university’s day care centers, how much they cost, and even that there are “lactation rooms” complete with hospital grade breast pumps scattered throughout campus! I guess I’ll be carrying a cooler around along with my laptop. Great.

And, amazingly, I was able to resist the siren song of my backlog of sewing projects and new Parent Trap DVD enough to do the entire circuit. I made sure to close the blinds first, lest the construction crew across the street think that my pelvic thrusts in their direction were some sort of invitation. (If you could see me, I make quite a sight doing this workout, especially since I refuse to buy maternity workout clothes, so there is now a ten-inch protrusion of bare skin between my waistband and sports top.)

But when it came time to make a decision about the carseats, I found myself caught in a vortex that spiraled down from mild indecision, to increasing confusion with dangerous hints of questioning my suitability for parenthood, to utter panic and despair accompanied by heart palpitations. 

That vortex is known as “online reviews” at Amazon.com, which then leads one to the even more terrifying and dangerous world of forums and message boards, from carseatblog.com to a site for Subaru Legacy owners that includes multiple conversations on which carseats work best with the Legacy. And I thought I was a dork. There’s a whole subculture of guys who think the Legacy (granted, the turbo version with a spoiler) is the hottest thing on four alloy tires.

[Skip this part if you are not interested in the details of my carseat dilemma--so, if you’re not a parent. Or if you are NOT suffering from severe insomnia, or are not a masochist. You know, there is absolutely no reason anyone should read this. I’m just writing it for myself.] You see, we get a free carseat from Ben’s employer (which we refer to as “Sabre” when we wish to keep its identity anonymous, as I shall do here since it’s inevitable that I’m going to want to slander it sooner or later), and can choose anything made by Britax, a fairly expensive brand. If we’re going to get a $350 carseat for free, I want to make the most of it, so I want to get a convertible seat that will last until the kid is 70 pounds--so, if she’s anything like me, until senior year. Then, we’ll still need an infant seat, and there's only one seat on the market compatible with the fancy-schmancy stroller that my sister is handing down to us. So you’d think would make this an easy decision: buy the cheap Graco seat for the stroller, and the best Britax seat to use for the years beyond. Easy!

Oh, ho, how foolish you would be to think that. An easy decision? For me? Me, who won’t go out for a scoop of gelato without poring over all the Yelp reviews of all nearby gelaterias? No, I must do my research, in my quest to make the perfect decision that I will never regret. There are 300 Amazon reviews alone for ONE model I am considering, many of them paragraphs long and written by engineers who go into the physics of why the Marathon 70’s headwings are superior to those of the Advocate’s, or whether the side-cushion technology of the latest Boulevard will protect your baby’s head in a crash or wrench it from its socket, even explaining why Consumer Reports can’t be trusted because of how they’ve revamped their testing procedures. Then there are the reviewers like “Braeden’s Mommie!!!” who get on to write a typo-ridden rant about how a piece of the headrest broke off for no reason, and it turned out to be made of styrofoam, or that the chest clip broke and nearly punctured poor Kaighleigh’s lung. Some babies fall asleep instantly in the seat, they love it so; others shriek in pain during every car trip, causing their parents to rue the day they ever chose this despicable seat. Whom do I trust? Even the Graco seat (which isn't really a choice--we have to get it if we don't want to buy a new stroller) has rave reviews and claims that its straps are impossible to adjust. Judging from these reviews, a trip of any distance with a baby needs to be engineered more carefully than a space shuttle launch. Yes, we are going to have our seat installed by the certified carseat technician at our Subaru dealership, but even then, how will we ever move the seat from one car to another? Will I have to personally drive my child everywhere she ever goes until she’s big enough for a booster seat?

Turns out there are a million little sub-decisions that must be made before you can make the big decision of which seat to buy: convertible or not? Will you use it with a stroller? Move it between cars? Take it on a plane? Use it front- or rear-facing? Will the harness be too high for your baby (whose size you can't predict)? Who will be sitting in the passenger seat, since they may not be able to recline? And then which fabric do you want? Dark, to cover stains, or light, so it doesn’t absorb heat and burn your baby in the summer? 

I decided to take a break from this madness and make an easier decision: which baby carrier (like, an Ergo or Baby Bjorn, etc.) to buy. Even THAT led me down the primrose path to review-scouring. There were reviews by women who bought ten different carriers (seriously) before they found one that would work for them. That’s like $1000! How will I ever deciiiiiiiiiiiide?! 

I took a deep breath, and---okay, I ate five squares of Swiss milk chocolate and a bowl of Cocoa Krispies, and went on to surf from Gawker to The Nation to reviews of books I’ve recently read to see if the critics agreed with me (another shameful pasttime of mine). Hours later, I did have a potential epiphany: Somehow, whether in an Ergo or a Pikkolo Catbird wrap or a Moby sling, I will be carrying my baby around in three months. I’ll use my bare arms if I have to! 

And somehow, we will transport this baby to visit her cousins and aunts and uncles and, eventually, her little friends (whose parents' profiles I will meticulously research online beforehand). No! That is not who I want to be! That was the whole point of this post: we have access to too much information. At some point, it stops being useful and becomes a hindrance--to authentic life, to being in the moment, all that mumbo-jumbo. (Namaste.) From a practical standpoint, this glut of opinion steals from us; it steals time, energy, and trust in our own instincts. It makes us see ourselves as nothing more than consumers, and it perpetuates the false belief that we can create our own happiness by choosing the right products. When the truth is, if our carseat turns out to be a pain in the ass, so what? We already live with many pains in our asses, but we're fortunate that they are only figurative, and not, you know, colorectal cancer. My world will not turn on whether I can get the baby into the car in three seconds versus three minutes.

I’ve always had a terrible time making decisions. I tend to think that if I just do enough research, think logically, and seek enough input from others, I can determine precisely the right choice, and thus control the outcome. But maybe there isn’t always a right choice, with baby carriers or the many more important decisions that we’ll have to make in the coming years (when I’ll look back and laugh at myself for giving it this much thought). Maybe Julia/Maeve/Gracie will be better off if I spend hours each day doing something besides learning what 398 people thought of her carseat. Like eating a danged vegetable once in a while.