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Exploiting baby

Adriene Hill Aug 24, 2012
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Exploiting baby

Adriene Hill Aug 24, 2012
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From baby-sitters to college funds, we’ve talked a lot this hour about the ways your kid is going to cost you. But writer Teresa Strasser decided to use her pregnancy and new role as mommy to actually make some money. And take advantage of strangers willingness to be a little nicer. She chronicles these adventures in a memoir called “Exploiting My Baby: Because It’s Exploiting Me.”

“I think there something lovable and fragile and vulnerable about somebody who’s pregnant and it’s just an instinct,” Strasser said.

She put this idea to a test while doing a spot for her new show “The List.” She went to a mall and convinced a man to give her his sandwich, had several people hold her hair up and fan and the back of her neck — and one couple even removed her shoes and massage her feet.

Those weren’t the only perks of pregnancy for Strasser. She said she got more opportunities to work as a pregnant woman. She reported more for “Dr. Phil” and ABC bought her book about her pregnancy to make it into a TV pilot. Strasser points out that there are other moms “exploiting” their babies — Elisabeth Hasselbeck of “The View,” Kelly Ripa of “Regis and Kelly” and Kathie Lee Gifford.

“You are going to be a mom, you are going to be marketable!” She assured soon-to-be-mom and interim Money host Adriene Hill.

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