The Baby Has Landed

Ever since my daughter was born 6 months ago, I’ve had many questions from my bachelor buddies about how it feels to be a father. To be honest, my mumbled answers have dissastisfied even me, as I’ve been unable to fully articulate the impact of fathering a child. Nothing like a deadline to spur the effort, though, so here I aim answer this, by presenting how one household moves, overnight, from one demographic check box to another.

I’m speaking, of course, of moving from DINK (Dual Income No Kids) to DIWK (Dual Income With Kid). Personally, I prefer the typical Malaysian variation of DIWK, which is DIWKOM (Dual Income With Kid, One Maid). But more on that later.

Bye, bye, disposable income

The concept of disposable income, long a treasured hallmark of the DINK household (treasured among marketers who target them anyway), needs to be, well, disposed of. Somewhere between the Avent bottle steamer and the Graco car seat-stroller combo, the idea of disposable income got tossed out with last night’s used Mamy Poko diapers. Disposable income used to be something we as a couple would spend on ourselves, as a treat. The problem is, when one has a kid, one has to think on behalf of a 5 kg bundle of limbs and gurgles whose needs, in the eyes of baby product marketers, are limitless.

I’d written in a previous column that all consumer decisions were motivated by either fear or greed (“Dealing with Fear and Greed in Marketing”, The Sun, 19th September 2007), but the intensity of this exploitation in baby products gets taken up a few notches: those who worry about SIDS or “cot death” can purchase Respisense monitors which detect and warn parents within seconds of baby not breathing, while parents who want the next Einstein on their hands can splurge on Japanese flash card systems that cost more than RM2,000 per set!

Faced with this onslaught, new parents quickly learn a few skills or risk slipping into debt: the first is bargain-hunting (“Diaper promotion at Jusco! Must go!”), and the second is a more nuanced form of prioritising. I’ve noticed that more mature parents recognise that while a newborn certainly brings in new expenditures to the household, baby’s needs are actually quite simple and revolve around 5 basic areas: sleeping, eating, bathing, playing and passing motion. Ensuring these proceed smoothly, and that baby is healthy, remains the main priority.

Outsourcing and consultants

No dual income household, except perhaps with the help of kind grandparents, can afford to care for baby without some domestic help. Having a stranger enter your lives to care for your most precious possession sounds anathema to a lot of people, but to an increasing number of working couples, there is little choice. In management-speak, my wife calls it “outsourcing the non-core functions” – the aforementioned eating, sleeping, bathing, passing motion and playing. That sounds horrendous, of course, but that principally is what baby is doing with the domestic help when mom and dad are away earning the money to ensure these activities go on!

Another corporate parallel is the bringing in of “’outside consultants” in baby care. To some more traditional households, this is still the grandparents and grandparents-in-law, or assorted well-meaning and experienced aunties. However, an increasing number (ourselves included) turn to a select few books in the booming baby-raising self-help book market. This often leads to tension when the advice differs from traditional sources: aunties have been known to somewhat sarcastically remark, during one of baby’s occasional caterwauls, “So what does ‘The Book’ have to say?”

A Different Mindset

The upshot of all this is that the consumption of a DIWKOM household comes to resemble less the agglomeration of 2 different consumers’ utility within a DINK household, and more of a corporate unit which maximises overall capability. A brief explanation is required.

Utility, which stands for pleasure, happiness, fun, is the basic unit of ecnomics – we buy goods and services to maximise our utility. But the basic kernel of economic development – whether of individuals, families, societies or nations – is that of capability, an approach pioneered by Amartya Sen, the Nobel prize-winning economist. Capability development is about being capable of doing more through a process of being more learned, more long-lived, saving time, or being more wealthy.

Put simply, there is no better incentive to capability development than having your progeny stare at you googly-eyed every day before you go to work. Parents need to take a long hard look at themselves and ask, what kind of environment do we want for our child, and what can we afford? The answer, of course, is, you try your darndest to provide the best you can.

Economic studies have long shown that married individuals outperform singles in wages and overall cumulative lifetime earnings. I assure you, my single friends, that while this may be true, it is more out of necessity rather than any God-given talent or smarts. So if you really want to get rich, stop messing around with your life, get married, and have a baby!

As seen in theSun, 7th May 2008. PDF version here.