Debra Pickett

It was, in fact, almost funny when their little boy, immediately upon entering our kitchen, went straight for the below-the-sink cabinet door behind which we store gallons of cleaning products and other toxic chemicals. And everyone laughed with only slightly less good humor when next he reached for the non-safety-compliant cords on the window blinds. But, by the time he went for the teetering piles of hardcovers on our living room bookshelves, no one was particularly amused.

His mother, in an utterly kind and non-judgmental tone, mentioned that we might consider hiring a baby-proofing consultant. For about $500, she said, someone came to their North Side home, identified all the potential hazards and then installed the necessary latches, locks and other fixes to make the place kid-friendly.

My husband and I silently exchanged horrified glances.

"Five hundred dollars?" he was thinking. "That's insane."

"No books on the lower shelves?" I was thinking. "That's impossible."

What price, safety?

Since then, I've become a little obsessed with the idea of baby-proofing. It is, for me, a philosophical quandary, a measure of not just of my readiness for motherhood but of my essential character, of the kind of person I am. And things are not looking good.

Because, I've got to tell you, when I read on the Web site of one baby-proofing service that, "Kitchen stoves, refrigerators, ovens, microwaves and dishwashers ... should be secured with guards, latches and straps," my immediate reaction is that I will not, under any circumstances, be locking up my refrigerator. Nor will I be buying a $13.95 Kidco toilet lock to prevent my child from drowning. Or even a $12.95 Plant Saver cover that could prevent my baby from eating fertilizer-tainted dirt from the pots that contain our long-suffering houseplants.

There is, of course, some possibility that I will one day be pulling my burned/soaked/poisoned child from the oven/toilet/window box and carting him or her to the emergency room, where someone, inevitably, will be waiting to hand me a copy of this column just before calling to report me to the mommy police.

"Oh," the mom cops will say, just before I am sentenced on charges of selfishness and attempting to maintain pre-baby aesthetic standards, "you're the one who thought your time was just too valuable to lock and unlock the toilet multiple times each day."

And then they'll punish me by redecorating my living room with plastic furniture in developmentally friendly primary colors. And hiding the grown-up books and sharp knives in locked cabinets that I can't reach.

Dr. Spock said it was OK

There's a certain blithe arrogance that accompanies the pre-parenthood phase of life. From an evolutionary point of view it's quite necessary, I'm sure, since none of us would reproduce if we fully understood all the consequences.

Still, there is a part of my brain that insists I am being completely realistic in believing that certain aspects of my life will not have to change in order to accommodate raising a child.

Six months from now, when I hire someone to encase my child's nursery in surgically sterile bubble wrap, it will be funny to look back on these days and on my current insistence that I'm not going to give in to the "age of anxiety" mentality that seems to govern modern yuppie parenting standards.

At the moment, though, it's my ambition to emulate my own parents' 1970s approach to baby care. Blissfully unaware of the many ways I faced death everyday -- from traveling without a car seat to riding a tricycle without a helmet -- they figured that I'd probably get into a lot of semi-dangerous stuff, but that I'd most likely survive it. Sticking my finger in an electrical socket was assumed to be the sort of thing that I'd only have to do once before figuring out it was not the best idea.

Peer pressure

Of course, this is precisely the sentiment that, when expressed by an expectant parent in the presence of actual, current, modern-day, educated-about-all-the-risks parents, is greeted with polite, isn't-that-quaint laughter.

Because they know that even if you could live with the idea that you had placed your own desire to open the refrigerator without the use of a combination lock above your desire to keep your child safe, you'd never be able to admit it in public.