Einstein and Baby Einstein: It doesn't take a genius to settle this controversy

Albert Einstein, whose name is synonymous with genius, was a slow learner as a child. He was so slow to speak, his parents consulted a doctor, according to Walter Isaacson, who wrote "Einstein: His Life and Universe." Before he became the greatest physicist in history, Einstein was unable to get his doctoral dissertation accepted or to land an academic job. Simon Baron-Cohen, the director of the autism research center at Cambridge University, thinks he also may have had a slight case of autism.

Still, he's the epitome of genius.

So much so, a couple used his name in 1997 when they developed Baby Einstein, a video product designed to introduce children to colors, shapes and numbers. The company was purchased by Disney in 2001.

That company has received fire recently from Dr. Susan Linn, director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC). As a result, Baby Einstein announced last week that it will offer a full refund to anyone who would like to return up to four Baby Einstein DVDs as a way to let the parents decide if they're any good.

"We strongly believe that, unlike Linn, our consumers find value in our product, and ... we have decided to leave it up to those customers," according to the company's Web site.

CCFC sees it as "an acknowledgement by the leading baby video company that baby videos are not educational," according to a New York Times article.

The Baby Einstein line also include music CDs, books, toys and other items. Products bear names such as Baby Van Gogh and Baby Shakespeare, but does anyone really believe these products will turn their children into a world-renowned artist or author?

I'd be a little concerned if I had a toddler talking to a human skull or mailing his ear to a prostitute. If that's the result of these videos, I certainly hope they don't come out with a Baby Hemingway.

I've never watched a Baby Einstein video, so I conducted an informal poll of my friends who are parents. One of my friends uses them regularly because her son loves the shapes and colors, while others purchased the products or received them as gifts, but rarely play them. A couple of friends said the products are collecting dust on the shelf and have never graced their DVD players. But not one of these parents said they expected the videos to turn their children into wunderkinds. All of them are dedicated, intelligent parents who spend time reading to and playing with their kids, and want the best education for them.

Unfortunately, Linn has never met my friends and doesn't seem to think American parents are smart enough to tell the difference between a video and a miracle product that will restructure their children's brains.

To her credit, Linn is an instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has done extensive research and written two books on the effects media has on children. She's also a mother. No doubt, she has the facts to back up her assertations.

But let's give American parents some credit, too. Since the beginning of time, parents have been telling their children "no," and since the early 1950s, they've been turning off the television, shooing their children out the back door to play and telling them not to come back until dinner.

So why go after a manufacturing company when it's the consumers who ultimately control the sales?

Linn has also criticized the BookIt! program. In 1985, Pizza Hut introduced the program as a way to reward children for reading. I've been reading voraciously since I was 4, so the BookIt! program was just an added perk to my word-obsessed existence. But for kids who hated reading, maybe it was the incentive they needed to sit down with a book. Maybe it was the program that helped them increase their vocabulary, make sense of textbooks and broaden their horizons.

But Heaven forbid we reward children with junk food.

"It undermines parents by positioning family visits to Pizza Hut as an integral component of raising literate children," Linn said in an article by George Marker.

Am I the only kid whose mom's favorite word was "no"? I had a stack of personal pan pizza coupons a mile high because we didn't make regular visits to Pizza Hut. Mom was proud of me for getting BookIt! stickers, but Pizza Hut visits were a treat, not an obligation. BookIt! didn't undermine the efforts made to help my brother and I do well in school, either. BookIt! or not, we had a plethora of reading material in our house, from comic books to the encyclopedia. The stock answer to any question that started with "Why" or "How" was "Look it up." My brother has always hated reading, but he kicks butt at Scrabble, no doubt thanks to these tactics.

And while Baby Einstein might be controversial to some, it's not designed to prepare kids for the LSATs. It's ludicrous to assume a simple video will turn an infant into a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Even Einstein was well into adulthood before he became "Einstein."

(Nicolov, an assistant editor at The News-Item, writes "Don't Get Me Started" for every Friday edition.)

Sign up for Text Alerts

Sign up for e-mail newsletters