Parenting is never easy and each generation of parents has its unique challenges. Parents rearing children during the great depression faced one set of challenges, while those parenting children during War II confronted different but equally difficult ones. For today’s parents the challenges are of a different order. First and foremost is the need to resist the rampant consumerism that dominates contemporary society. The explosion of mass media, including the Internet, has meant that parents are bombarded with advertising aimed at getting them to buy various products for their infants and children. Advertisers have no qualms about making totally unsubstantiated claims about the value of their products. In this way they build upon parents fears that they are “not doing enough” for their children. Parents find it hard to resist the pressures to buy what everyone else is buying and to put their infants into swimming and Gymboree programs so that they will not be different from their peers.