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According to the Sunday NY Times, nearly every entertainment industry power player with an offspring of diaper-soiling age is currently in the thrall of a tiny cadre of red-hot child-care coaches whose influence over the town is so complete that failure to register a pregnancy with one of its influential members results in the immediate confiscation of the unlicensed newborn, which is then mercifully drowned in the Pacific in an attempt to save it from a lifetime of abuse and neglect. Meet Hollywood's Baby-Rearing Mafia:

"If you're a parent in this business," said Suzanne Todd, a film producer and mother of three, "you probably have Jackie, Donna, Jill and Jen, and Betsy in your Rolodex." She said that these consultants are like movie stars who can easily be identified by their first names, and it would be clear to any of her colleagues with children that she was referring to Ms. Rosenberg; Donna Holloran, the founder of Babygroup Inc., a Westside mommy-and-me group; Jill Spivack and Jennifer Waldburger, the owners of Sleepy Planet, a sleep-training practice; and Betsy Brown Braun, a parenthood expert who runs groups on child development.

The name "Jackie" means something to preschool admissions directors because they know that an endorsement from Ms. Rosenberg can affect their school's popularity. Entertainment industry players call in favors from friends to help secure a place in her groups.

And when Ms. Rosenberg tells influential parents what to do, they listen. If, that is, they can get an audience with her.

"People call me the minute they leave the doctor's office and say, 'Don't tell my mother I'm pregnant, but I wanted to get on your list,' " Ms. Rosenberg said. (For the most part, these baby groups are first come first served, but you probably won't get in if you don't call during the first trimester of your pregnancy.) [...]

"There are people who think they're too important or famous to listen to me," said Ms. Brown Braun. "A head of a big agency came to me because his child was having separation issues. I said, 'You need to drive your child to school every day for three weeks.' And he said, 'Don't be silly, I can't.' I said: 'O.K., don't. If you can't help your child for three weeks, don't do it.' I think he was sort of stunned." (Ms. Brown Braun's seminar subjects include "Affluenza: The Perils of Overprivilege.")

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), the widespread adoption of these baby coaches' techniques will almost certainly result in the total collapse of the industry. When the inexorable pull of nepotism causes these coddled, well-adjusted offspring to ascend to positions of power at studios and agencies, Hollywood will fall into ruin because everything's being run by a generation that lacks the killer instinct to succeed generated by being raised by parents whose only expression of love comes through the act of hiring domestics to make sure their progeny don't starve to death while they're off making movies.