Call me paranoid, but I was particularly worried to see the corporate attack on Maia from her very first week of existence. The picture shows the content of Maia's first present - a plastic bag full of baby and parent oriented products that Emese received upon checking out from the Uzsoki hospital.

Growing in a planned economy, long time ago I had developed the average East European syndrome of disproportionate zeal for consumption. Particularly for the glossy well packed Western brands, which were so scarce and unreachable for the average Bulgarian back then. But that did not last long - very soon after the changes I realized that the full shops do not make life much better. What used to be an intuitive disrespect for brands back in the 1990s, grew into conscious resistance to consumerism and the pressure from the corporate world to change my life into an endless shopping exercise.

For that reason I felt extremely suspicious and hostile for the beautiful package, decorated with famous and infamous corporate logos in Emese's hands. Of course most of the things inside it were quite useful - like the daily package of nappies and wet cleaning napkins, and we ended up using most of them. But the thought that 'they' are making Maia a client at the age of 5 days was pretty unpleasant. I think my daughter deserves a break, before becoming just the next money making biological unit in the corporate Matrix.

For the record, the Herbaria tea for brestfeeding women was the one product from that pack that Emese actually asked me to go out and buy for her. She said she knew the brand even before, and she liked the tea. Yet, I would prefer it handpicked from the forest, and without a brand, if possible.