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OPINIONS
Mufson: Believing in 'Baby Einstein' videos wasn't smart
Good parenting has never been easy. Not only is it a 24/7 responsibility to care for a helpless newborn, but theories and advice on how to rear babies change continually.
Most of us who have now reached grandparent age can look back with a wry smile as we think of the ever-changing dictums of child rearing. For example, at one time infants had to sleep on their stomachs; now babies must sleep on their backs. Feeding styles have ranged from strictly scheduled to demand and yesterday's toilet training theories are all wet.
In recent years, child-rearing emphasis has been on creating smart babies who would grow up to be brilliant little Einsteins. Lawyers and courts have now determined that exposure to the popular "Baby Einstein" videos did not make babies into geniuses. The real Einstein would have known this.
People in each generation raise their children according to what they believe is the best for the child. New parents often receive guidance from the older generation that sometimes is considered hopelessly or somewhat out of date. Professionals and "gurus" propose new theories and advice that parents feel more obligated to follow.
And so it has been with the "Baby Einstein" series of videos and toys. These became such a "must" for parents that a 2003 study cited by Tamar Lewin in the New York Times pointed out that "a third of all American babies from 6 months to 2 years old had at least one 'Baby Einstein' video." The Washington Post and Business Week are reported to have said that this company sold "$200 million worth of products annually."
To add to the cacophony surrounding the current "Baby Einstein" lawsuit, Walt Disney, which now owns the "Einstein" and "Baby Mozart," "Baby Shakespeare" and "Baby Galileo" items, has been court ordered to give refunds for videos bought since 2004 because the videos don't make infants smarter.
So it was with much amusement that on the same day I learned about the "Baby Einstein" brouhaha, an article by Stephanie Strom appeared in the New York Times about Sergey Brin. He is a 36-year-old who is now a billionaire and co-founder of Google.
In 1979 when he was 6 years old, Mr. Brin's parents needed financial help to escape from the Soviet Union. As an infant, Sergey Brin could not have been surrounded by "Baby Einstein" products. Even if such items were available in 1973, Russian parents trying to escape from the communist government could not have afforded them.
The co-founder of Google, who is now setting up a charitable foundation, was apparently raised without any "Baby Einstein" products. Any parent would be pleased with his success.
American parents apparently really believed that by buying the right educational products for their babies, who according to the American Academy of Pediatrics shouldn't be watching videos before age 2, they could make their infants much smarter or at least ensure that no potential genius was unturned.
There will always be new and different theories for raising children, but parents need to make informed and common sense decisions. It's important to give children stimulation, attention and love, but parents should be realistic enough to know that the latest toys with the cleverest names and big advertising budgets cannot guarantee anything for their child's future.
Parents need to recognize that expensive toys are not responsible for producing geniuses or highly successful adults. Believing that "Baby Einstein" could do all that wasn't very smart.
Diane W. Mufson is a licensed psychologist in Huntington. She is a former citizen member of The Herald-Dispatch editorial board and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page. Her e-mail is dwmufson@ comcast.net
