This very strange video is not teaching American Sign Language, which is a language, it is teaching baby sign, which is a recent parenting fad for communicating simple words and phrases to "preverbal" babies.

Frightening, yes, and I'm not sure I get the point of the video. Babies learning baby sign are too young to learn anything from a television, and the parents who are the real audience should by all rights be disturbed by it. What does this say about the monkey-man's opinion of parents' intelligence levels?

Thanks, Serious Notebook, for the links to ASL information. I posted my first letter mainly because there are so many misconceptions about sign languages, and to call baby sign ASL perpetuates this.

As a linguist and mother of a young child, I have to put baby sign in the mostly-harmless-but-generally-unnecessary category. Children learn language. That's what they do. There are some who do so more quickly than others, and a very few who have actual language delays or disabilities, but, generally, children will learn language regardless. The babies I know who sign do so at about the same level that they communicate generally, i.e., their ability to sign correlates with their ability to use words or other nonverbal means of communicating.

Anything that encourages parents to interact in positive ways with their children, and to pay attention to babies' willingness to communicate, is commendable, and I have no problem with parents who choose to try baby sign. But I take issue with the product-peddling that goes along with the baby sign movement, and any claims that teaching your child baby sign has long-term benefits (and that, therefore, not buying stuff and teaching your baby to sign is essentially depriving them).

Incidentally, all studies that I am aware of that claim long term benefits for baby sign are published by the same researchers that are now selling books, dvds, etc. to parents.

And I'm not sure I understand how using an annoying and slightly disturbing monkey-man in a video aimed at parents is not insulting to parents. I find the monkey-man insulting to even baby-level intelligence.

I feel compelled to defend Prof. Hayes and Ms. Traister from the many letters essentially saying Hayes stole from Buddhism (or elsewhere).

I'm not sure if it is possible to have a philosophy that is entirely original. About a week ago I read a twenty-year-old book by Alexander Lowen called Fear of Life. In it, he argues (among other things) that failure is inevitable, and that we should not be afraid to fail, but should focus our attention on being, rather than on trying to achieve success. The book was thought-provoking, but not brilliant, and inspired me to return to some of the similar ideas espoused in the Buddhist texts on my bookshelves. It was only a small leap from Lowen's being to Buddhist mindfulness.

This morning I listened to a radio program (the NPR KQED show Forum) on the book Breaking the Spell, by Daniel Dennett. Dennett also wrote a book called Consciousness Explained a few years back, and someone called in to ask why he hadn't acknowledged in his book that his ideas were basically Buddhist.

And now I see the letters responding to this article.

The point of philosophy, psychology, and the like, is not to be original. If the point were to be original we should all just stop now. The point, it seems to me, is to make (mental) connections, explore ideas, provoke. If Hayes was inspired by Buddhist philosophy, and wants to acknowledge that, so be it. But we can't expect every writer to acknowledge every inspiration, or dismiss every writer or scholar whose ideas resemble ideas we have encountered elsewhere.

Someone else has commented that things weren't always so difficult. From my own experiences watching my parents, I would have to agree. My father got a tenure-track position when I was 2 (nearly 30 years ago), and got tenure sometime during my elementary school years. He also stayed home from work every time I was sick (which was often), was home to help fix and clean up after dinner, did all the grocery shopping and much of the cleaning, and spent time with me on the weekends. I'm sure there was some working after my bedtime and on weekends, but I knew nothing about this tenure thing unil my friend's father told me to congratulate my dad on getting it. I get the impression that this is not the kind of workload we are talking about now.

The question of pregnancy, and nursing and caring for young children, is more difficult, and this issue is uniquely female. Really, though, it's just one example of issues that come up in people's lives and the care options our society gives us. In my opinion, it should be possible to slow down and get off the path for a couple of years for any family or medical issue without losing your place on a career track. A previous letter writer had a child with extreme medical difficulties, and lost all hope of advancement in her chosen career path? Are you kidding me? Did she lose IQ points in the process of caring for her child? Because if not, it seems to me that forcing people to make these kinds of choices--your health, your family member's well-being, or your job--fails us all.

I don't think it's a question of telling mommies to stop complaining and decide whether they want to mother their children or be great scholars. The needy years of a child's life are few. Once a child is in school, the average mother may have 30 or 40 years left in her career. My father, for one, is now very prominent in his field. He didn't have to give up all time with me to get there, and professors today--both men and women--shouldn't have to either.