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Saturday, February 03, 2007

Heroic Perspective

I have no particular opinion about the relative virtues of educational television for babies. Since I find it unspeakably irritating and my child has no interest in it, I happily don't have to have a dog in that fight (so to speak).

But I have been amused by this mini-fracas that popped up on Slate in response to Timothy Noah's piece about why it is absolutely ridiculous that it is ridiculous for the President to have honored the creator of the "Baby Einstein" videos as an "Everyday American Hero," whose efforts could compare somehow to those of people who jumped, in front of oncoming New York City subway trains and into the freezing Potomac river to save their fellow man.

Needless to say, the Baby Einstein honoree, Julie Aigner-Clark, was annoyed and wrote an obnoxious and point-missing letter back, following which Noah slammed her.

There is nothing really wrong with loving Baby Einstein and using it either to entertain or edify a kid (if you think the programs actually can do that), but unless we're talking about a kind of unintended heroism (as in "if my kid didn't watch this DVD, she would scream so much I would throw her off the roof") this praise and honor is misplaced and it isn't hard to be cynical about it.

posted by Elise at 5:40 AM

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2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, there IS something wrong with parking a baby in front of a television, regardless of the content. The American Academy of Pediatrics, along with many many child-development experts recommend no tv AT ALL for babies below the age of 2. None. The babies do not benefit, although you might, by getting a few extra minutes to do whatever. TV is not harmless and innocent, regardless of what the developer of those videos believes. And I agree with you: she is a brilliant entrepeneur, tapping into parents' need for their child to magiaclly become a genius with no effort beyond pushing a few buttons on their DVD or VCR, but heroic? Hardly. I loved the Slate piece.

2/05/2007 6:36 AM

Elise said...

I think the Slate piece is really good, and I agree that it is probably not healthy to use the television as a constant babysitter, but I also agree with Timothy Noah's comment that some people might get some necessary peace with the help of a television program. This doesn't work in my house anyway, so I'm not really one to talk, but I wouldn't go so far as to suggest someone was doing serious damage to a child with the occasional television experience.

I found, in my incredibly brief exposure to Baby Einstein, that the stuff was so annoying that there was no way I would subject myself to it, even if my kid gave it the time of day, which he didn't.

2/05/2007 7:23 AM

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