Well, well, well, finally I did something right!
Sure, I bought the full Baby Einstein Collection. I even unwrapped some and put one on .................. once. And, I found them so incredibly boring and so annoying on so many levels, that we NEVER WATCHED ONE AGAIN. Ms. Bean is 4 and most are still in the original packaging.
For 4 years I have felt a little badly about this. While all of the other kids were watching those idiot puppets spin to synthesised, almost classical music, Ms. Bean was watching John Stewart and American Idol (Bucky was her favorite BTW). Worse yet, Baby Bee NEVER saw ONE SECOND of a Baby Einstein video. Clearly, many would say that my kids were going to be developmentally behind due to me selfishness.
Imagine my relief when all of my favorite blogs starting discussing a Washington University study which found that babies who watch the videos are less verbally proficient then those who don't. Specifically, with every hour per day spent watching these DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new words than babies who never watched them.
Looking back, this should come as no surprise to anyone. The videos contain minimal dialog, jump from scene to scene, and focus on mesmerizing objects like lava lamps and those weird toy water-wheels. While this type of entertainment would be a great hit with pot smokers on college campuses, it is probably not a great learning aide for infants. So, rather then dump my DVD's in the trash, which I have been meaning to do for months, I am going to find an incoming college freshman to bestow them on. Who says I don't think about today's youth?
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