More Hating on Disney: Baby Einstein Edition

I'm afraid I'm about to get self-righteous and snobby and maybe a little preachy.

I didn't set out to do that.  I was going to write a snarky little post about how babies have terrible taste and the books they enjoy often have little literary or artistic merit.  Something like:

WTF is up with Goodnight Moon, anyway?  "Goodnight, nobody/Goodnight, mush"?  It's like somebody transcribed their peyote trip.  And the artwork, arbitrarily alternatint from vertiginously lurid color blocks to black and white line drawings, is as discomfiting as a David Lynch movie, but far less visually interesting.

And don't get me started on Baby Einstein...

But I did get started on Baby Einstein, and became a little horrified in the process.

We received a Baby Einstein book and a couple DVDs from a friend soon after our twins were born in June of 2009.  The book was fine.  It was just as stupid as most baby books. You know, "Look at Froggy stick out his long tongue...Blah!" 

But you know how babies are.  They ate that shit up, as they do with about 80% of the books we read to them.  They're just not very discerning about literature. 

I knew that the Baby Einstein brand (acquired by Disney in 2001) had been tainted by some research that discredited their claims about the educational value of their popular DVDs, and that they had backed off on those claims and even offered customers refunds if they felt they had been misled into buying the products.

But aside from a little mumbo-jumbo about learning stages on the back cover, and the promise of genius-building content implied by the product name, this book was indistinguishable from most of the baby books we had. So I read it to the kids without any expectations or prejudices. 

And, I have to admit, they learned some stuff from that book.  Mostly they learned how to stick out their tongues and go "Blah" whenever they saw a picture of a frog.  Turns out it's pretty hard to keep babies from learning things when you read to them and act foolish to get them to laugh and copy you.  In fact, it's safe to say that they have learned something from each of the books we've read together over and over again.

Recently, we were given more Baby Einstein books--a whole stack of third-hand ones from a relative--and I felt the same way about them.  I ignored the pseudo-educational claptrap on the covers, and read the ones that the kids brought over and threw in my lap. 

Meanwhile, the DVDs that we had gotten from our friends over a year ago were still unwrapped.  We had planned to get a refund on them, since we had no intention of showing them to the girls.

Which brings me to the snobbery.

We don't have a TV. 

The short version of the story is that we were faced with making a decision about which cable provider to go with ten years ago, and we still haven't chosen one*.  But despite that pithy oversimplification, we actually do believe that we're superior to most people because we don't stare at the idiot box for hours every day. (What? Hulu?  Never heard of it.  TV shows on your computer, you say?  Preposterous.  I would never waste my time with such a thing.)

Regardless of what we may or may not guiltily consume on our small screens after the kids go to bed (It ain't all Masterpiece Theatre), we don't want to expose our kids to TV or DVDs until they're at least two years old.  That's the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is a good enough guideline for my wife and me.  My wife is a physician, and, while I don't understand science very well, I believe in it like some people believe in God.  Let me qualify that: I believe in peer-reviewed research conducted by qualified academics more than I believe in anecdotal evidence and market research gathered by the Disney Company.

We've been pretty damn good about keeping them away from the tube, too.  In 19 months, they've seen the odd three-minute video, or caught some snatches of shows at friends' houses, but up until very recently, they had never really sat down and watched a show.   

That all changed last week, when the twins and I were sick as dogs.  I was staying up too late, as usual, and sleeping fitfully because of my cold; and the girls were waking up coughing in the middle of the night.  Most days, one or both of them would wake up at 4:00 a.m. and cry inconsolably. 

In desperation, we watched little clips from kids' shows online, and when that was no longer enough, we tore open the Baby Einstein DVD's.  "Tearing" is no exaggeration--I was cussing under my breath and clawing at the shrink wrap and tape and little tabs on the container (when did they start using those?) in the darkness as my wife urged me to hurry up while the kids screamed their mucus-y faces off. 

Once we got the DVDs rolling, the crying stopped and the mesmerizing began.

We probably watched those two DVD's of random soothing images set to dumbed-down versions of classical standards fifteen times in the last week.  And they worked like tranq-darts full of Nembutal in the neck every time.  For the kids and the adults. The kids quieted down and glazed over within seconds, and one of us could semi-consciously chaperon them while the other went back to bed.

The girls and I are on the mend now, and I haven't had to resort to playing the DVDs for a couple days.  I had been afraid that they would get hooked on the junk and start nagging me to put them in the laptop, but I guess they weren't exposed for long enough to become dependent.

But the experience did get me thinking about how scammy the whole Baby Einstein enterprise seemed.  I had always wondered why our highly educated friend--a scientist in fact--had given us those DVDs as a gift. Surely everyone knows that Baby Einstein DVDs are no better for babies than watching Jersey Shore, I thought.

I figured I could get a sense of public opinion on the matter by checking out reviews of Baby Einstein products on Amazon.com.  

This is where the horror part happened.  Also, more snobbery on the way.  Preaching to follow soon thereafter.

I scanned through a dozen or so Baby Einstein titles, and none of them received an average rating of less than four out of five stars.  Most of them were 4.5 or 5 stars.  Granted, some of the reviews were written before the most recent, most damning research came out, but even the latest reviews were overwhelmingly glowing.  Below are a couple choice excerpts.

About the 2009 release, Baby Noah, "Super Mom" says,

We bought this for my 7 month old son for Christmas and it has been awesome. He loves all the animals and babies in the movie. I am able to actually get several things done around the house while he watches (rare thing in our house). Normally I will start a video for him and be able to have five minutes before he is crawling away but he seems to love this movie and is mesmorized [sic] by everything about it. Definiately [sic] a keeper!

Really, Super Mom?  You need to "mesmorize" your seven-month old in order to get things done around the house?  Our kids were extraordinarily adept at napping (about 4 hrs a day) at that age, and I managed to re-side and re-roof our house during their naps (with the monitor in my toolbags, of course).  Regardless of time management issues though, doesn't it seem like anesthetizing your kid with screentime might be a bit habit-forming for both of you?

The word "mesmerize" (in its various forms) comes up over and over again in the hundred or so reviews I read of the different DVDs.  And none of the reviews I read said anything like "I was a little creeped out by how mesmerized he was."  They all celebrated the mesmerizing with exclamation points and smileys.  It was clearly one of the top criteria in the rating considerations.

Here's another good review for Baby Noah, by "terri":

I have twin 7 month olds and they have been watching this movie and baby Neptune since they were 3 months old!! I can play them over and over and over until they either get hungry or fall asleep or when the credits start up they start crying. It's amazing how much they love these 2 movies and they are great when I am trying to get chores done,,, they'll rock in their infant/toddler rockers just giggling and are totally content enjoying the show. Based on reviews I just purchased the Baby Mozart. The boys don't ever seem to tire of the 2 we have, but Mom is ready for a change!! ha ha

It's awesome!  I really don't even have to be around!  I would go to the casino all day if I could get a robot to feed them!! ha ha

Here's some praise for Baby Mozart:

Leighton Snow says: "My baby loved this at 3 mths - she seemed to think it was so amazing. She's watched it 2.5 times in a row (about an hour long)a couple times!"

Jeezus.  I might be a little brainwashed by science and...um, common sense, but sticking a three-month old in front of a TV for an hour at a time?  Can't. Be. Good.

I'm going to wrap up my rant now, although I could go on.  From my reading of a small sample of the Amazon reviews, my impression of the two reasons people love these DVDs are: 1) they put kids in stupors; and, 2) they're "educational."  Most of the reviews I read included some kind of nod to the supposed educational value of the DVDs, usually something along the lines of "It's so great that I can leave him alone for extended periods of time, staring into the glowing box, and know that it's good for his brain!! :)"  This was true even for reviews that were posted well after the most recent research was released and covered extensively in mainstream media.  From which I can only conclude that Disney's marketing is [gasp] more effective and far-reaching than science journalism.

I'm not an expert in this field, by any means.  I've read a little bit about childhood brain development, and all of the credible research suggests that kids should not watch TV before age two.  I've read a few of the arguments defending early childhood TV consumption, and they usually amount to critiques of the research that argues against early viewing.  These pro-early viewing arguments tend to come from people in the children's "edutainment industry" and consumers of their products. 

I'm sure there are flaws in the studies that the American Academy of Pediatrics bases their recommendations on, as there are flaws in every study.  But I have yet to see any research that demonstrates any benefits of sticking your infant or toddler in front of the tube.  So why do it at all?

If you look in the "About Us" section of the Baby Einstein website, they don't feature stats about all the children whose lives have been enriched by their DVDs.  They have a timeline showing the trajectory of their dominance in the children's edutainment market, of which they are estimated to hold a 90% share.  This alone makes me skeptical, to say the least, about how dedicated they are to what's best for my kids. 

And then there's the "Parents' Guide" page, in which parents are encouraged to watch the DVDs with their kids, pointing at the screen and talking to the baby, making the DVD, in effect, a "hands-free book."  That seems pretty reasonable, although it makes me wonder what's so bad about the "manual" books of yore.  But I didn't see any mention in those rave reviews on Amazon of adults interacting with the DVDs or the kids.  In fact the reviews lauded the lack of interaction the DVDs demanded.

Finally, there's a very interesting "Ask the Expert" page on the website dedicated to explaining why the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation regarding screentime for young children was well-meaning but dead wrong.  The Expert claims that none of the research has shown any harmful effects from kids watching TV, as long as that screentime doesn't interfere with "together time" with the parent.  I'm sure there are parents who are able to blend screentime and "together time," but from what I hear and what I read in those Amazon reviews, the greatest benefit of Baby's screentime the "apart time" it affords Mom or Dad.

So to me, the question is, even if we accept the testimony of Baby Einstein's "Expert"--and it's fine to let your baby watch TV as long as you are there and totally involved in the experience--why bother?  Is there not enough stimulus in the physical world around them, in toys, and in books, to keep them interested and learning?

 

*I was so close to quoting Rush just then