Parenting through art direction

A certain breed of parent is happily buying postmodern rugs, art deco lamps and vintage sports posters for their children. But who are these items really for?

By Christopher Healy

Dec. 23, 2003 | I slept with my Star Wars comforter until I was 10; by 1982, when I finally crammed it into the back of my closet, behind the life-size E.T. bank, most of the stuffing had escaped through unmended tears at the seams and its original role as a source of warmth had been long since forgotten. Still, for half a decade, nothing made me happier than waking up every morning to the sight of a poorly painted Wookie across my chest. That officially licensed duvet, with its overcrowded starscape of characters and horribly clashing color scheme, was not an item my parents found particularly attractive. Yet they, just like the parents of my friends, quietly suffered the whims of prepubescent interior design. My desire for that sci-fi bed set went completely unquestioned.

Although it would probably have been more pleasing to the adult eye, I can't imagine the younger me would have had the same fondness for a reversible embroidered silk Pottery Barn Kids quilt with matching sham. I try to keep this in mind now, when purchasing décor for my daughter's room. It's difficult, though; I know a Dora the Explorer light fixture would elicit endless squeals of delight, but would it go with the Picasso print hanging over her crib?

The bedrooms of today's preschoolers have a decidedly different aesthetic than those of my Mattel-driven youth. Gone are the Willy Wonka-inspired candy murals, the Smurf-shaped beanbag chairs, the My Little Pony window treatments. In their stead we see braided chenille rugs, hand-painted boutique lampshades, and four-poster beds draped with mosquito netting. What happened to those hideous "Hey! I'm sleeping in a Ferrari!" racecar beds that sat in the rooms of every sitcom preteen between 1978 and 1985? Either children have far more sophisticated tastes than they did a few decades ago, or today's parents, when they buy for their kids, are really buying for themselves.

Perhaps the answer lies more in marketing than pure selfishness. Sure, the current crop of new parents is a product of the "Me Decade," but there's more to it than that. Mine was the first generation of kids to have TV shows based on toys, instead of the other way around. And we were among the first guinea pigs to experience children's advertising after the National Association of Broadcasters deregulated it in 1982. Now that we have purchasing power for our own children, a whole new army of adult brands is seeking to lay psychic claim to the cash we've earmarked for our offspring. That's why we're spending $70 on white cashmere Baby Gap sweaters for children we know will inevitably puke on them.

Grown-up stores marketing children's items add to the misconception that kids are just like adults, only smaller. And the unfortunate side effect of that theory seems to be the burgeoning concept of parenting by art direction: The belief that one can mold his or her child's personality by purchasing the appropriate accoutrements. ("But, sir, my daughter couldn't possibly have been the one who started the fight; everything in her room belongs to the same Victorian teddy bear theme.") We follow this line of thought in part because we are easily duped by catalog-induced fantasies.

Flipping through the Pottery Barn Kids 2003 Christmas catalog, one is amazed by the apparent fact that most grade-schoolers are not only very tidy, but organized to the point of OCD. Checked-off to-do lists serve as centerpieces for several rooms, and every vintage toy and logo-less crayon is stowed away in its appropriately labeled wicker basket. Children are also seemingly much more well-behaved than films like "Mr. Mom," or "Daddy Day Care," or, say, most people's home movies, would have us believe. Children study diligently at their antiqued white desks, they cut out paper dolls, they brush their teeth, they use flash cards, and on Christmas, they sit in their individual monogrammed armchairs and stare at the tree. (In keeping with the season, the current catalog also offers monogrammed stocking, monogrammed ornaments, monogrammed wooden sleds, monogrammed turkey aprons, and, of course, monogrammed Santa hats.) The pages of this catalog feature no fewer than 26 children who are either reading, writing or engaged in some kind of non-messy craft project. You can almost sense an eerie silence in the photos, as if the only thing a foley artist would need to do to score this catalog would be to leave his microphone in an empty cathedral.

We can only jump to one conclusion: Stylish, trendy, modern but old-looking furniture creates perfect children. But take a closer look and you may start to question for whom these rooms are actually designed. How many 7-year-old boys do you know who are obsessed with 1940s-era floppy leather football helmets? Yet we see an entire room devoted to that very motif. In fact, a common trend among Pottery Barn Kids is a fondness for things that were popular 40 years before they were born. As evidence, I present the brothers who own several jars of marbles, the boy with the Adam West-era Batman comic, and the young man whose favorite movie, based on the poster hanging over his bed, is the 1965 Dale Robertson western "The Man from Button Willow."

Next page: An Ikea child would feel stifled and confused in the home of a Pottery Barn Kid