I resisted the idea of the Nanny Box for a long, long time. It seemed inhumane to me. And I guess, if I’m being honest, it felt like an admission of failure as a father. We shouldn’t have needed the help. We should have been able to afford the right sort of care. We should have been able to make the necessary time.
But life is hard and compromise comes easier and easier as you get older.
Besides, everyone else was doing it. It was the only option most of us could afford.
So when Julien was four months old, we bought a Nanny Box. And that’s where Julien spent his days while Harriet and I worked.
There’s no way to know what it’s really like inside the box. The advertisements all made it sound very stimulating. It’s supposedly very immersive and comforting for a small child, simulating all the usual inputs a child that age needs, beaming the information directly into the brain. It provided food. It kept your baby clean. And it was tested, they said. It was safe.
Most importantly, however, there was Julien, who remained our happy, alert boy, meeting every development benchmark, right on schedule.
It wasn’t until Julien’s first word that we began to understand what we’d done.
We were eating, Julien in his highchair, face orange with pureed carrots. Harriet held out the spoon and said, “Say mama.” Julien’s expression changed just so slightly. His mouth curled in unfamiliar ways.
“Saaahm...sung,” he replied.
Harriet blinked. “Maamaa?”
“Sahm-sung,” said Julien, a little more forcefully. “Sam-sung...alll...allta vssin...four kay…”
Harriet was bewildered, but I knew. I’d seen the commercials. “Samsung UltraVision 4K,” I said. “It’s...it’s a television.”
Julien giggled and clapped. We both tried to pass it off as a case of monkey-see, monkey-do, but Julien got older and more talkative. And he never learned to say, “Mama” or “Dada.”
“Julien, how are you today?” we ask.
“Build a website with SquareSpace,” he says, smiling, so bright behind the eyes.
“Julien, what is my name?” I ask.
“Shop Wayfair, for home decor on a budget,” he says, so sure of himself.
There were lawsuits, of course. We were part of one of the bigger class action suits. The company that made the Nanny Box went under, and the payout never came, but the truth is that no amount of money will ever bring Julien’s mind back. There is no way to undo the mistake that we made.
They say there are something like 400,000 “Box Babies” in the United States alone. You may see one from time to time.
You’ll say, “Hello.”
And they’ll say, “Shop the Dollar Value Menu from McDonald’s.”
You’ll say, “Have a nice day.”
And they’ll say, “A great day starts with Jimmy Dean microwavable breakfast sandwiches.”
You’ll say, “I love you, son.”
And they’ll say, “Start earning bonus miles with Capital One today!”
Just smile when it happens.
It’s not their fault.