Dear Baby Einstein: Keep the cash!

“Hi, I’m Julie Clark, founder of The Baby Einstein Company…” 

More women have gotten naked to the sound of Julie’s voice than to the sound of Barry White, Marvin Gaye and Steve Perry’s voice combined. Why? That’s how every Baby Einstein video begins and it has been the cue for a lot of moms that it’s now time to take a shower. I would pop in Baby Mozart or Baby Beethoven just to get a break from my little bundle of joy and get squeaky clean, not because I really believed my kid would grow up to be genius because she watched it. 

Last week Disney, who bought the Baby Einstein brand from Julie Clark in 2001, is offering a refund to consumers of the video series because—surprise—it won’t make your baby smarter. The FTC says this in their statement, “There’s no credible evidence that screen media can educate infants.” 

Yeah, we kinda knew that already FTC, but have you ever gone four weeks without shaving your legs or eight hours without talking to another adult? I thought not…I liked Baby Einstein and used it strictly for the thrill of being clean. It was a benefit to me to not look like a swamp monster when my husband came home from work. That was the value. Give us moms a little credit here FTC, “educating infants” wasn’t the goal here, Sillies.  

I suppose the alternative to Baby Einstein would have been letting my baby stare out the window for 20 minutes or play with my hair dryer and bobby pins until I was done freshening up, but, to be honest, I kinda liked those little puppets and the music of Baby Einstein served as the soundtrack to my little respite from momminess. 

It’s not like I plopped my baby in front of the tube for hours on end (well, there was that one day…) and thought I was doing her a solid by giving her a jump start on her education: Moving her well ahead of her diaper-clad friends. I always knew it was just a distraction, a little amusement for her while mommy “got ready.”

Compared to the other “screen media” like Barney and The Wiggles, Baby Einstein was bearable to watch and the music was…well, classical. The only thing that annoyed me about the video series was the fact that I didn’t think of it myself, market it, and sell it to Disney for millions. 

So, you might have clued in, I won’t be cashing in on Disney’s offer to refund my money. In fact, I want to give a BIG shout out to Disney and especially Julie Clark for keeping me clean and (occasionally) coifed during the baby years—Thanks! Oh, and Julie, if you ever put out your own CD, please do a duet with Steve Perry, women around the nation will go wild for it! 

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This was written for my blog at OC Family. Head on over there to see what you’re missing.