As the mom of an 11 year old, there's always pressure to enroll my kid in the latest "enrichment" activity... Summer reading, music lessons, sports lessons... Fortunately, after a few years, you realize there are only so many hours in a day — and so many dollars in a budget — and you find a happy balance.

But woe to the soon-to-be new parents out there, who are now being told they need to enrich their child before he even has a chance to take his first breath. I just saw the BabyPlus Prenatal Education System, a product that straps onto Mom's bulging belly, emitting 16 varied sounds that resemble a mother's heartbeat.

For $149, your unborn baby has class twice a day for an hour, and the sonic pattern introduces her to a sequential learning process, based on the natural rhythms of the womb. (So the natural rhythms of the womb aren't enough?) The rhythms of the sounds increase incrementally as the pregnancy progresses. Until what? The baby pops out snapping his fingers, doing calculus and demanding an iPod?

To read the rest of this post, please visit my blog, "Parent Talk," at http://www.parenttalk.typepad.com. Hope to see you there!