The air crib is an easily cleaned, temperature- and humidity-controlled enclosure intended to replace the standard infant crib. Skinner invented the device to help his wife cope with the day-to-day tasks of child rearing. It was designed to make early childcare simpler (by reducing laundry, diaper rash, cradle cap, etc.), while allowing the baby to be more mobile and comfortable, and less prone to cry. Reportedly it had some success in these goals.

The air crib was a controversial invention. It was popularly mischaracterized as a cruel pen, and it was often compared to Skinner's operant conditioning chamber, commonly called the "Skinner Box". This association with laboratory animal experimentation discouraged its commercial success, though several companies attempted production.

while the headline... says ‘mother’ the illustration suggests something rather different. Traditionally American motherhood is, stereotypically speaking, wholesome and fairly innocent, yet the look on the model’s face is neither especially innocent nor entirely wholesome. Indeed, as Kathleen Barry has pointed out, her ‘atypical stare and casual posture conveyed smoldering sexuality rather than maternal concern’. ‘Mother’s world’ is about housework and children, it is not supposed to be erotic—indeed, the worlds are usually separate—yet the expression on the model’s face is alluring and flirtatious. The associations here are more complex than the headline and body copy would suggest, so that the word ‘mother’ in the headline both invokes and denies the associations of motherhood. This ‘inner contradiction’ between copy and illustration is a rhetorical device used constantly in advertising to play on the opposition between appearance and reality, to create in effect double meaning or paradox. The paradox... is that the illustration shows us an attractive female model, but the copy asks us to ‘Think of her as (our) mother’. These jarring ideas create the appeal of the advertisement; the inner contradiction makes us take notice. However, paradox also means that apparent difference conceals real similarity: she may be attractive and alluring, but she is also your mother.