Your baby can read!

During my daily commute over the last couple of months, I've been bombarded by ads on the radio for a product called "Your baby can read." I find it amusing enough, in an admittedly supercilious sort of way, that there are so many products out there on the market that supposedly facilitate what I would consider to be basic parenting. However, I paid attention to these ads because I'm a firm believer in the wonders of a lifelong love for reading, and its impact on the learning process as well. Reading skills, coupled with a genuine enjoyment of reading and learning, are things that all too few of us truly have.

Little did I imagine then, that there could exist a product or system that could be focused on getting children to read, and yet be so antithetical to everything I believe about parenting and reading. It beggars belief, but Your Baby Can Read appears to achieve this.

I should clarify at this point that I know very little about the actual product, other than the fact that it is TV based. That in itself is enough to turn me off it, but what I'm really reacting to here is the content of the radio ad.

Early in the ad, a mother, purportedly extolling the virtues of the product, proudly states that "I just plopped him in front of the television." Later on in the ad, the mother is asked what she had to do to get her child to read, and she responds with something along the lines of "That's the best part - I didn't have to do a thing!"

It's bad enough that we think that it's reasonable and rational for our children to learn to read by means of a television. I don't even care about the argument for sight-reading versus phonics and all of that at this point. It just does not compute that a television is the appropriate medium for reading. There is no love for books, literature, reading, or learning being developer here - it's pure technical instruction.

What's even worse though, is the sales pitch that the ad is clearly centered around - the concept that you as a parent don't actually have to get involved in your child's development, and that's a wonderful thing for you. Unfortunately, that's the sort of world we seem to live in today.

This all seems to come back to the self-centred approach to parenting that we now aspire to. We're not consumed by our kids, and we're not dedicating ourselves to building their futures. We're instead concerned about portraying ourselves as brilliant parents of a genius, the irony being that we're usually the diametrical opposite.

Rather than looking to instill in our kids our lifelong love for books and learning, we want to be the person who can proudly announce that our kid could recognize words while still in the womb. The other beautiful irony is that we for some reason want to achieve this without actually being involved in parenting! I suppose it's reminiscent of most workplaces -- we want all the credit and glory and instant gratification, without having to put in the hard yards and take responsibility.

I really feel for the parents who get suckered into this as well - the joy of your child's face lighting up as he or she reads books and stories, and gets lost in a world of imagination is completely lost to those who are apparently devoid of the desire to parent. Someday, people will learn that if they just want a plaything to show-off to their friends and colleagues, a puppy is the better solution.