Getting the family ready for a road trip requires more than making sure you've got a decent rear-seat entertainment system. Instilling a sense of adventure starts from the time they are born.

By Robyn Larson McCarthy

I read as many parenting magazines and online resources as I can as background research for my two other jobs... mother and children's book editor. And one of the common denominators I've noticed is that so much of the advice and so many of the products out there are geared to make things easier. Not easier for parents--electric bottle sterilizers, travel changing pads, room monitors--but easier to parent.

Feel like a meanie telling your kids "don't touch" and "no" 200 times a day? Install padding, lock up, and otherwise secure everything breakable or even theoretically dangerous with products that go far beyond commonsense safety. Then, let them run wild. If everything is safe to touch, why bother teaching a sense of boundaries and respect for property? It takes so much effort, and things are just crazy for me right now.

And while it's been years since the experts first decried excessive use of that electronic babysitter, the boob tube, the concern now includes the overuse of the in-vehicle entertainment systems owned by 19 million U.S. households, according to Consumer Electronics Association figures.

When Volvo released its tongue-in-cheek "Teach your kids not to share" campaign last year, for example, reaction from some in the family welfare community was swift and severe.

Child and family therapist Laura Kuehn hit the nail on the head in the lead of her insightful piece of online commentary about the ad: "The harsh reality is that these advertisers are playing into what parents really want: kids to be quiet, occupied, and out of their hair. Because many children seem to have lost the ability to entertain themselves, parents feel that they are left with few options