Baby Einstein Refunds
But the truth is I didn't screen Baby Mozart for my kids. I did it for me. For the 30 minutes of divine alone-time that those bizarre, baby-bewitching shows provided once (OK, sometimes twice) a day. In a sprawl of groggy home-with-my-infant months, that half-hour was time when no one whined at me. Wailed for me. Tugged on me. It was time so precious that I don't even mind having traded a few of my kids' IQ points for it.
Yes, I'm going to take the "La-la-la-I-am-not-listening" approach to this refund news. You can argue that the videos inhibit language acquisition, that children learn to speak through face time with mom and dad. And I can argue that my kids did not need to learn the words that would have been spewing out of my face if I hadn't had that brief daily window of me-time.
Researchers are always telling us what babies need: sleep, touch, attention. No one ever asks what mommies need. When my kids were babies, I needed a shower. I needed a nap. Frankly, I needed a drink. Instead, I calmed my nerves in a bath, took a brownie out to the garden, stole some short-term shut-eye, or lost myself in a book that made me laugh — and laugh in a way that a post-diaper-change game of "where's your nose?" really never did.
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