A few months ago Disney, who sells "Baby Einstein" a series of DVDs designed, presumably, to turn babies who watched them in to little geniuses offered refunds for the DVDs. The videos have been criticized an advocacy group called Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood, which said, that contrary to the company's early claims, watching TV is actually detrimental to children younger than 2.
Dispite this very popular "educational aid" being pretty much debunked similar products continue to be popular in the US and UK.
There are a lot of things that are supposed to make babies smarter: listening to classical music comes to mind. But, why classical music? To me this seems to just be an extension of Euro-centric values. The more expensive toys one may find in stores today for very young children often emphasizes their learning benefits. There is this notion that all of these things have been developed scientifically. The claims may or my not be back by any real science but, there is a segment of the population that treats parenting like it is a science. At the heart of this "science" is cultivating the young mind into a genius if at all possible.
Why is this such a big focus?
( This is a sound system, so the process can begin before birth. There isn't much science behind these ideas-- which is ironic since the goal is to cultivate intelligence. )
I have a few theories:
1) Middle and Upper middle class people want to distinguish their children from the poor. This might not be a conscious effort-- but, there has always been an assumption that people from different backgrounds think differently. There are certainly behavioral differences-- but this probably has nothing to do with "intelligences." Parents subject their kids to these processes and the kids develop behavioral markers than allow other in their social class to identify them. Having a certian kind of vocabulary, or liking classical music. These things are supposed to be intrinsic, but just in case they aren't parents want their kids to "get it right." Hence the intensive effort to mold baby's mind.
2) Women can't be trusted to "produce" (like a factory?) children of high enough um... "quality" we need to add "science" ?
What do you make of all this?