My latest Went West column looks at the recent controversy over Baby Einstein videos, which, you may be surprised to learn, were never designed to be “educational.” According to the company, anyway.
The company chooses a strange angle from which to defend itself. Responding to a recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics that children under two watch no television at all, the company argues that this advice does not “reflect the reality of today’s parents, families and households.”
Why not?
Because, Baby Einstein says, “a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 68 percent of all babies under two years old watch screen media on any given day.”
The company’s clear implication is that, if all of this television-watching is happening anyway, it might as well be Baby Einstein videos that the kids are watching. In the strangely qualified words of one of the company’s co-founders, “a child is better off listening to Beethoven while watching images of a puppet than seeing any reality show that I can think of.”
The rest is here.
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