How do poor people have babies?

In two weeks time my wife and I are having a baby. More my wife than me, I can’t take too much credit for these things. Yes, I played my part. But I don’t have to carry it around for 9 months, or deal with all the strange ills that come from having an alien bean in your belly. I know my place — I am just a walking ATM. Not for my wife, but for the baby shops, and for the Satanic spawn that pose as caring assistants in these dens of toddler iniquity. I am a lamb to the slaughter, a chump steak ready for the pan.

Every day there is something new we need to buy. Some indispensable item that we must have, or forever forsake our eagerly awaited bairn to the scrapheap of humanity. Well, that’s how the ladies of Baby Village, Babies Galore, and every other derivative shop out there, make you feel whenever you walk through their doors. They ply their trade through fake smiles and guilt-inducing stares. Their eyes bore into you, making you feel like an unworthy parent, an ungrateful git who doesn’t deserve this perfect gift from God. Why, oh why, Sir, wouldn’t you want to buy this stroller that looks more like Humvee than a pram?

From Baby Bjorns to buggies to bassinets and bunny rugs, every item is essential. And that’s just the Bs, never mind the Cs, Ds, Es and Fs. Well, F this, I want to know how do the poor afford to do this? Where do they get the money to have kids? How are their kids ever going to get ahead when they aren’t doing baby yoga, early age swimming and don’t own Brainy Baby DVDs 1,2 and 3?

We have been to the baby classes. We have booked a doula. Visited the lactation consultant, and the sleep therapist. We have signed up to that impossibly long waiting list for that special day care. Yes, that one, the one that says: We care about our kid’s future, about the quality of his or her first friends. Lord knows, it’s important that they hang out with the SUV set, or they will never get into the right school. (What the hell happened to our rock ‘n roll souls?)

The list spirals around and around in my head, getting bigger by the day. Do we have enough receiving blankets, and how is that different to a swaddling blanket? Do we need both, do we need two? Oh shit, maybe we should just get two of each? And what about this dummy chain, and that bib clip? Should we get the glow-in-the dark lamp or the sophie the giraffe toy or the Paddington care bear? Will baby be a Vans guy or a Nike cat? Oh gosh, what if it is a girl, what then, what sneaker brand looks cool on a bubbette?

Baby Inc. A recession-proof business. That’s what I’m gonna do in my next life. I’ll make a mint with the world’s greatest swindle — baby merchandise.