You see them everywhere: harried parents hauling their little ones off to classes in Mandarin, gymnastics or classical violin. At home, they're filling nurseries with "educational" rattles and mobiles. It's all for a worthy goal: making the most of the first three years of life, when critical changes in brain structure determine whether little Madison or Matthew will one day enter the Ivy League. At least that is what a growing number of parents have been led to believe. Sadly, it may all be a waste of time and money.

Thanks to what journalist Susan Gregory Thomas calls the "toddler-industrial complex," parents have become suckers for toys with "Einstein" or "genius" in their names. In her new book, "Buy Buy Baby," Thomas explains how a well-meaning 1994 report by the Carnegie Corporation led to the creation of a vast marketing effort aimed at parents of young children. The report, called "Starting Points," used neuroscience to make the case for more federally funded services for infants and toddlers by proclaiming that brain development in the womb and during the first year of life "is more rapid and extensive than we previously realized." Although the science was actually quite limited—and there was certainly no proof that toys or videos could make babies smarter—the report helped focus national attention on the early years.