Roughly 15 years ago, before there was such a thing as Baby Einstein, I had a business idea that emerged from a dinner conversation with a linguist. We got to talking about how hard it was for adults learning foreign languages to ever sound like native speakers.
One reason for this is, apparently, is that there are sounds that occur in some languages and not others. If you are raised hearing only English in your first year or two of life, your brain loses some of its ability to discern the sounds that don’t arise in spoken English. I have firsthand experience with this phenomenon. When I tried to learn Mandarin before adopting my first daughter from China, there were about seven Chinese sounds that were subtle mixes of an “S” sound and a “Z” sound. I absolutely couldn’t tell the difference between them, and I certainly couldn’t say them.
I finally told my tutor one day that we were going to have to completely avoid any word with those sounds. That meant ruling out perhaps 20 percent of all the words in the language. She thought I was crazy, but I stuck to my guns and refused to ever learn one of those words.
So my idea was to create an audio tape (this was before CD’s) of songs and nursery rhymes that included all of the sounds from the world’s six or seven most popular languages. An obsessive parent could play this tape over and over, imprinting the sounds into the baby’s brain just in case later in life he or she wanted to learn the language.
We went so far as to try to figure out what collection of nursery rhymes would cover the full range of sounds, and I think we lined up some people with melodious voices. We even pitched the idea to the Home Shopping Network (unsuccessfully). Ultimately, we decided that we couldn’t possibly make enough money to make it worthwhile, and we abandoned it.
Consequently, I’ve watched Baby Einstein’s rise to prominence with a mix of admiration and jealousy. From a marketing perspective, they were geniuses. Sure, there wasn’t much (any?) evidence it made babies smarter. But it gave parents (including me) something to do with their infants, and that is worth something.
Lately, Baby Einstein is in the news again for two reasons. The first is that the new book NurtureShock has put it under attack. The second is that the company is offering refunds of $15.99 to anyone who returns a Baby Einstein DVD, and that has led some groups to claim that this is an admission that the product doesn’t “work.”
The big winners from the Baby Einstein refund: the folks who peddle the used DVD’s on eBay. When I searched “Baby Einstein DVD’s” on eBay, I got back nearly 3,000 matches of products currently for sale. Many of these are new DVD’s, but I presume many are used as well.
My guess is that the market price of a used Baby Einstein DVD a few months ago was not high — maybe $4 or $5. Since the refund deal doesn’t require a receipt or proof of purchase (as far as I can tell), each of those DVD’s is now worth $15.99 minus the cost of packing and sending the DVD in to get a rebate. That’s a boon to sellers, and it’s unlucky for the buyers. Of course, if you buy the used DVD, enjoy it, and then send it back to the company, you can get the best of both worlds.
I’d be curious to know how many DVD’s will actually get returned. I suspect not that many. It is a fair amount of hassle to go through for $15.99. More importantly, there are moral costs involved. I’ve got some Baby Einstein products collecting dust in a closet somewhere, but I would never think about sending them back. I knew what I was buying, and I got what I paid for. It would feel wrong to try to get my money back now.
Plus, if everyone else turns in their DVD’s, mine will become collectors’ items.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
My kids have outgrown them so I guess I can get some extra cash. What about VHS tapes?
Everyone I know who bought these got them, not to speed development, but because they had better music than “Barny” and less annoying characters than the “Teletubbies”.
In my experience, recognizing and pronouncing sounds that are not present (or not distinct) in your native language is *not* something your brain “loses”, but simply a talent that people have or have not to a varying degree.
I consider myself to be lucky to have that talent and thus very little problems with the pronounciation of foreign languages. Then again, it often leads natives to vastly overestimate my general proficieny in their language, since my vocabulary and grammar are much less good than my lack of a strong accent indicates to them.
“I knew what I was buying, and I got what I paid for. It would feel wrong to try to get my money back now.”
An economist leaving money on the table? Oh the humanity!
Collector’s item? Doubtful
On your speaking Mandarin problem….
I was once interested in the “fake” Chinese, or French or German or Russian that native American speakers use in jokes or humourous stories regarding foreigners. “Ve haf veys off making you talk….” etc.
So I began to ask native speakers of foreign languages whether or not there was an analogous “imitation- American lingo” that served the same purpose in their language.
That is, can a foreigner tell a story in her own language imitating an American speaker, while not actaully speaking English?
Apparently there is not. (There are British actors who routinely speak “American” but this is different.)
I’m sympathetic to the difficulty of learning Mandarin consonants (I’m a native English speaker and a graduate student in Chinese studies with basically monolingual parents). But it’s nonsense to claim total inability to discern sounds.
I started at age 23 and it made perfect sense (despite some tongue-twister moments), so presuming you started later, this could be significant. Certainly no one serious to any degree about learning the language could avoid a consonant, and there are thousands of excellent non-native speakers.
Anyway, I would just return the DVD when the kid’s not a baby anymore!
So my idea was to create an audio tape (this was before CD’s) of songs and nursery rhymes that included all of the sounds from the world’s six or seven most popular languages. An obsessive parent could play this tape over and over, imprinting the sounds into the baby’s brain just in case later in life he or she wanted to learn the language.
My dad struggled to teach us kids German. I struggled through foreign language class in high school. I played foreign language songs to my kids in their sleep, and even enrolled one in a language immersion program.
Now, I never bought Baby Einstein. (Or Freakonomics, for that matter.) But I would have bought a dozen of those tapes. And, given my growing collection of nieces, I still might. Quit this blogging nonsense and get working!
I suppose it depends on how one would determine whether they “work”. My niece occasionally has crying jags that can only be alleviated by Baby Mozart. Full attention from Mommy or Daddy doesn’t work, neither do any other videos they own. Based on that, I’d say it “works” pretty well, and I’d bet my brother and sis-in-law wouldn’t trade that DVD for $100, let alone $15.