Baby, Unplugged

Starred review from July 5, 2021
Equal parts informative and entertaining, journalist Brickman’s debut explores parenting in these tech-drenched times. With a baby-tech market worth nearly $46 billion in 2019, new parents have plenty of ways to gather data on their child’s lives, leading Brickman to ask if parents should “run... toward the safe, analog space.” She covers a slew of child-related gadgets, among them breast pumps, sleep trackers, and monitoring devices that provide parents with “NASA-level” data. Along the way, she offers insight from people who develop and market such technology (“You don’t want to overwhelm people who are looking for simplicity,” the founder of a baby monitor company tells her), explores physicians’ opinions (sleep trackers, one pediatrician warns, “get right up to the line so they don’t have to be regulated by the FDA”), and candidly shares her own experiences (“like many women before me, I grew to despise my pump”). Things come back to how overwhelming parents’ options are, a situation Brickman considers with humor: though looking at tracking data has been shown to release dopamine, she writes, “you can control a child as much as you can force her to poop on command.” For parents wondering whether to bring gadgets into the nursery, this will be an invaluable tool. Agent: Amelia Atlas and Kari Stuart, ICM.

August 1, 2021
Technology continuously tempts consumers, including brand-new parents, with new apps and gadgets. This thought-provoking account from Brickman, mother to two young daughters and wife of a fervent techie, tries to make sense of the myriad monitoring, recording, social networking, shopping, instructional, interactive, tracking, training, and how-to-build-a-better-baby commercial options clamoring for parents' attention. Her witty and totally relatable commentary focuses on when, how much, and what kind of technology is appropriate for both parents and babies. Brickman shares funny, self-deprecating personal anecdotes and analyzes her reactions in terms of psychological and neurological research, brief histories and biographical profiles, interviews and quotes from an army of experts from an array of disciplines, and her own instinct, bringing readers along on her journeys of discovery. One takeaway is that all young children need lots of independent, unstructured playtime. Introduce any kind of screen and kids become passive receptors instead of creative explorers. Babies also need substantial, sustained physical contact. Technology can certainly make tasks easier and temporarily distract toddlers, but nothing beats intuitive, hands-on parenting.

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