Education Schm-education

I have a pet peeve. I am beyond annoyed with the trend that says that all childrens toys MUST be educational. The other day I was strolling the toy aisles of Wal-Mart, and in the baby/toddler section, I couldn't find any toys that were SOLELY aimed at kids playing pretend.
If I want to buy my son a toy phone, it has to sing the alphabet song and teach him to count to ten.
Ditto on toy cameras, toy steering wheels, toy laptops. Oy!
A toy phone should make ringing sounds. Maybe it could say things like "Hello" and "Good-bye", but that's it.
A toy camera should make the sound of a shutter and flash--it should NOT be responsible for my kid learning his ABCs. And clearly a toy car should go "vroom vroom", not "One, two, three."  Better yet, the toy phone would say nothing and my son would make the sounds himself. He would also be the one imitating a car motor and horn, and the click of a camera. He would use his imagination.

 He has plenty of time to learn his numbers and his alphabet, and that is something that I, as his mom, can teach him. I don't need Playskool or Mattel or Fisher-Price to do it for me.

And then I came across this.

And all I can say is that a bacon-flavoured baby formula claiming to be responsible for 4 month old babies learning to walk, and 2 year old children composing symphonies, has got to be a joke. It has to be. Please, God, let it be a prank. Because I just don't think my blood-pressure can take it.

I am not feeding my baby formula fortitfied with bacon in order to turn him into some kind of super-genius, and I'm not having my child learn a second language from a toy drum. This super-babies obsession is really starting to chap my tush.

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