Baby Wit Takes Another Licking

This week’s Baby Wit saga involved a New York Observer article, which trashed us for making T-shirts that “forced children to be little signposts for their parents’ opinions.” The rest of the article was pretty typical New York snark, most of the references being to things no one outside of New York would ever care about.

We replied, of course, although our letter to editor was pretty watered down by the time we edited it to their specifications. (Yes, they asked us to edit our letter to the editor.)

You, however, get the full-version, uncensored, first draft…

So the New York Observer reporter who wrote today’s lovely article warned us yesterday about it, explaining to us that her editor made her change her story about Baby Wit to a negative slant. I kind of thought coercing reporters to slant stories a certain way was only something that happened at FOX, but apparently it happens just as often at snarky, liberal, New York-based weeklies too.

Of course, I’m not sure the reporter is telling the truth. Some of our customers called us saying she was trying to pry negative quotes out of them, so it could be she just called us out of some sort of latent guilt. Either way, newsflash for NY Observer reporter, get some cajones, or in this case, a vagina. Either tell your editor to fuck off and die, or ask hard-hitting questions and write a negative article. Don’t sweet-talk people, bash them, and then apologize for it. We’re hard-working small business owners; we don’t have time for cutesy, New York, girl-about-town-ness.

I haven’t read the article yet, and I probably never will, since I don’t live in New York and I’m not going to subscribe to the thing, but apparently the crux of her argument is that our kid’s political line is inappropriate because it encourages parents to use their children as a billboards. (We have shirts that say “I already know more than the president.” and “President Poopyhead”)

To that I can only say, what the hell are you doing when your kid’s shirt says BABY GAP, or DORA THE EXPLORER, or FUTURE DALLAS COWBOY CHEERLEADER? Are you not saying: I support Indonesian sweatshop labor, or I’m teaching my child to smile, nod, and talk to the TV, or my child has a future in mini-skirts and breast implants. Oh wait, you only dress your little Emma in pretentious, designer clothing—you’d never let her wear a T-shirt. That happens to say something too.

For the record, I have no problem using my child as a billboard. I’m also using my car, my laptop, my sidewalk, my business, and anything else I can get my hands on. I’m not going to let the media stupefy me or my child into thinking that dropping bombs on and torturing the innocent civilians of a sovereign nation who did us no harm is something best kept on the down-low.

Our president IS a poopyhead, and as far as I’m concerned that’s being kind. A lot of other people out there happen to think similarly, which is why our T-shirts fly out of our punked-out garage. Every time we make one, and it gets stuffed into a biogradable plastic bag, we smile a devious, little smile. Maybe, ten years from now, when these kids grow up, they’ll carry forth the tattered banner we’ve been waving—the banner that says that Mr. Bush is an idiot, the banner that apologizes for our nation’s embarrassing behavior. Maybe, ten years from now, if we keep making T-shirts, the poopyheads will be long gone, we’ll be out of Iraq, and there will be peace.

As far as we’re concerned, there’s no inappropriate way to get across that message. Put it on your car, your baby, yourself, hell, spray paint it all over the New York Observer office at 915 Broadway for all we care. But get the message across. By any non-violent means necessary.