When I was pregnant I registered at Babies-R-Us as many new mommies do. Of course within the next couple of weeks I began receiving postcards and welcome packages from formula and toy companies. I loved all of the coupons and free samples of baby formula. Then, one day I received a postcard advertising a baby safety seminar. The postcard had a phone number to RSVP to and a listing of the topics that would be discussed at the seminar. My husband and I decided it would be beneficial to go because we thought we might learn about car seat safety, the safest cribs and highchairs, and product recalls. When we got to the seminar, it was a whole different story.
Once we got into the conference room with about two dozen other couples, we noticed that there were binders in every other seat. Being the curious people that we are my husband and I opened ours to be faced with an article about how a little boy got seriously hurt falling out of his crib. Okay, thank you safety seminar people for putting this horrific thought into our heads. I started to get a little nervous until the man conducting the seminar – we’ll call him Mr. Bob — stepped up to the front of the room and introduced himself. He talked about how we all want to keep our babies safe and there are hidden dangers in certain products.
Mr. Bob first showed us a demonstration with a doll and a crib. He talked about how easy it is for a baby to fall out of a crib if the height positioning is wrong. He then uncovered another crib and proceeded to jump into it and continue jumping – to show how sturdy the crib was, of course. He talked about how other cribs that had cut-outs in the decorations (none of which his crib had) were a major cause of strangulation. He had another demonstration crib that looked to be about forty years old and showed us how flimsy it was. It fell apart before our eyes as he tampered with it. Mr. Bob then talked about how much more convenient his particular crib was as compared to other cribs because once your baby grows out of it, you can turn it into a toddler bed. I thought, “Well the crib we are probably getting can be turned into a toddler bed too.” Then he said the brand of the so-called “bad” crib, and of course it had to be the one that we had chosen. As he kept talking, I began to feel like I would not be a good mother if I did not buy this crib that he was selling.
With this is mind, I will leave you to ponder what happened next. Did Mr. Bob perform another incredible demonstration? Will he succeed in selling his product? Look for the earth-shattering conclusion – Baby Safety Seminar? Part II.