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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, July 5, 2002

Parents spring for brainy toys for tots

By Marco R. della Cava
USA Today

A Baby Genius Dragon
The moment of Baby Einstein's conception must have looked very much like the one unfolding right now in a spartan office on the south side of Denver.

In 1996, Julie Aigner-Clark, then 30, headed to a makeshift set in her suburban basement. There, she slipped a puppet onto her hand and slid to the floor to try to get her infant daughter, Aspen, to smile while husband Bill, then 45, hit "Record" on the video camera.

Fast-forward to today: Clark is still barefoot and puppeteering, only now as president of the Baby Einstein Co., a homegrown phenomenon that has helped ignite the infant-through-toddler video market.

Actually, that market was all but nonexistent until the University of California-Irvine released a study in 1997 dubbing the positive impact of classical music on babies the "Mozart effect."

Thanks in part to the grass-roots (translation: moms talking to moms) success of Baby Einstein, this $1 billion-a-year toy category, known largely for videos that combine classical tunes with sprightly imagery, has a host of players. Trek to the toy store and, with a blizzard of names such as Baby Genius, IQ Baby, Brainy Baby and other cerebral-inspired monikers, you'll think you've stumbled into a mini-Mensa convention.

"We predict a 50 percent growth in the next few years," says Jim Silver, publisher of The Toy Book, an industry monthly. "It's a combination of today's parents wanting educational toys for their kids and the toy world simply keeping up with today's technology."

Fueling this frenzy are new parents who find themselves under both real and imagined pressure to make sure their tots can compete. Preschools often require references for admission. Kindergartens expect kids to arrive with solid number and letter skills. Even President Bush has weighed in, pushing the three R's over simple play by proposing to retrain 50,000 Head Start instructors in teaching the alphabet and other old-school basics. Then there's the sad saga of Elizabeth Chapman who falsified her 8-year-old son Justin's IQ and other test scores, hoping to give him a leg up.

The Chapman case may be a deviation from the cultural norm, but that norm is shifting. In part, this is a result of the marketing machines now behind the mom-and-pop toy companies: AOL Time Warner is distributing Baby Genius wares; last fall, Disney bought Baby Einstein from the Clarks and aims to make the brand a household name.

But Aigner-Clark insists that her videos were not meant as ammunition for success-obsessed parents on the hunt for brain-boosting baby goods.

"This was never about making your baby into Einstein or Mozart or Beethoven, but about exposing them to these wonderful geniuses of the adult world," she says.

"At the same time, I think these folks who say babies should never watch TV are going a bit overboard. The point is to share all experiences, whether it be a video or going for a walk, with your kids."

But many parents feel conflicted.

In a recent online survey conducted for USA Today by Parents magazine, respondents were split when asked if they felt pressure to raise smarter kids (42 percent said yes,

58 percent no). But when asked if they were inclined to purchase a brain-boosting video or toy, 69 percent said they were "somewhat" or "very likely" to do so.

Bonnie Reinke, 37, is a lawyer in Dallas who "loves" Baby Einstein and Baby Genius tapes. They allow her a few baby-free minutes to make dinner while son Jake, 11 months, remains calmly enthralled. "Yes, I do feel a bit bad about using it as a short baby-sitting tool, but, hey, that's the reality of things sometimes," Reinke says. "I have no way of knowing if he's benefiting from them, but I also just don't think they hurt."

Sally Lee, editor of Parents, says: "While there's nothing wrong with these new brain-oriented products, I sense a growing backlash against the pressure they can make modern parents feel. Some parents just want to make childhood fun again, to let their kids play without purpose."

Many toymakers are quick to agree — despite packaging and brand names that speak more to the future test-taker in your kid than the fun-loving tot.

"We're not going to make your kids smarter, we're just saying that music makes a difference," says Howard Balaban, business development chief at Baby Genius, another pioneer of classical music-steeped videos.

Focus groups over at toy monolith Fisher-Price have shown parents get "anxious when confronted with products named Einstein and genius," says marketing and design chief Jerry Perez. "Hyper-achievement can be a turnoff."

Do these toddler-targeted videos and toys have an impact?

Child development specialist Claire Lerner says there's "no research that shows any long-term benefit from these sorts of products," though she's pleased by the new emphasis being placed on an infant's earliest development. "But don't buy these tapes as a knee-jerk reaction to what your neighbors are doing," says Lerner, a staffer at Zero to Three, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit dedicated to the well-being of young children. Instead, evaluate what the tapes offer your child "and ask yourself if you can do a better job providing it."