Monday, September 25, 2006
Baby Mozart
The anxiety and guilt that many parents have around television finds a strange parallel in music. Most folks know what they like, but want their children to know better. And the makers of Baby DVDs know better yet: for they know that only the lowest common denominator of high brow endures. And so it is that we have Baby Mozart, Baby Beethoven, and Baby Brahms. True, no caring parent would dare stake their child's academic future on Aha or Enya or the Dead Kennedys. But dead Germans--now you're talkin'! These fail-safe luminaries will personally ensure that your baby understands first inversions in the phrygian mode before you do.
And yet, none of it really works. Research has thoroughly debunked the Mozart Effect, which was discovered to much bally-hoo when someone found that children who had been exposed to classical music early in their lives outperformed children who had been kept in dark caves. When appropriate adjustments were made for the other aspects of the child's environment, the Mozart Effect vanished like Figaro's bachelor days. Infants enjoy music, and it can promote healthy parent-child interactions, but listening to the Jupiter symphony again and again will not make your child a mathematical genius.
In that sense, the repertoire is a little limited. While I can appreciate the marketing challenges posed by a Baby Cage or a Baby Cobain , I'd be first in line to buy Baby BeBop . And if parents can ever shed their own insecurities and decide to have some fun, Baby Jewell will be a runaway hit.
And yet, none of it really works. Research has thoroughly debunked the Mozart Effect, which was discovered to much bally-hoo when someone found that children who had been exposed to classical music early in their lives outperformed children who had been kept in dark caves. When appropriate adjustments were made for the other aspects of the child's environment, the Mozart Effect vanished like Figaro's bachelor days. Infants enjoy music, and it can promote healthy parent-child interactions, but listening to the Jupiter symphony again and again will not make your child a mathematical genius.
In that sense, the repertoire is a little limited. While I can appreciate the marketing challenges posed by a Baby Cage or a Baby Cobain , I'd be first in line to buy Baby BeBop . And if parents can ever shed their own insecurities and decide to have some fun, Baby Jewell will be a runaway hit.
