By Anthony Brooks:

In America’s high-paced, strive-for-success-go-for-the-gold-meritocracy, it’s never too soon to start jockeying for advantage. That explains in part a booming industry that has many parents convinced that Mozart and inter-active alphabet games are as vital to their infants’ development as a mother’s milk.

Never mind that there’s slim scientific evidence that Mozart or a host of so-called baby-enrichment games actually makes them smarter, let alone improve their chances of Ivy League success.

Some experts say the obsessive insistence that babies engage in productive play at all times deprives them of boredom — that precious chance to absorb, consolidate and make sense of the new world swirling around them.

Hear about extreme parenting, baby geniuses, and the baby-enrichment industry.

Guests:

Alissa Quart, author of the forthcoming book, “Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child” and “Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers.”

Dr. Charles Nelson, Pediatrics Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of Research at the Developmental Medicine Center in the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at Children’s Hospital in Boston

Dennis Fedoruk, President of the Brainy Baby Company.