Should I just replace them all with back issues of "Cosmo"?

A little while ago, the blogger at Naptimewriting (which I discovered during Infinite Summer, and which is a nice stop for people interested in observations on parenting or literature -- her post on ambivalent parenting is a must-read for frustrated new parents who need reassurance that they're not horrible people) mentioned in passing the "lame-o mainstream parenting magazine[s]" in her pediatrician's office. "Oh, my," thought I, "I suspect my office is festooned with lame-o mainstream parenting magazines." While I wasn't particularly concerned that the recommended toys are laden with toxins (which are probably so rife in American society at this point that avoidance is futile), it did occur to me that I'd never actually looked through the magazines that litter our waiting areas.

The other day opened a copy of Parenting to a random page, and immediately wished I hadn't. The spread I found was all about one of my biggest and most persistent pet peeves -- this obsessive, infuriating obsession we have with "making our kids smarter." Elizabeth has already written about this before, and we share an antipathy to any toy that boasts some kind of developmentally-enhancing feature. Because God forbid your kid should just play with a toy for the sake of enjoyment alone. However, this particular spread was about foods that will make your kids smarter. (I cannot find it online, or I would link to it.)

Among the foods that are, apparently, "brain food" (I kid you not) are cereal ("a mix of carbs and fiber that'll keep 'em thinking all morning"), cheddar cheese ("fortified with DHA for extra brainpower") and Goldfish crackers (!) ("complex carbs, which provide a steady supply of energy to your genius's brain"). There is also a Del Monte pear chunk snack with acai juice, "a powerful, damage-fighting antioxidant."

My friends, this is a heaping helping of codswallop. I am all in favor of Goldfish crackers. Acai juice may confer some health benefits, though probably not in proportion to the hype. I take fish oil supplements myself, so I certainly don't see anything wrong with DHA supplementation per se. But none of these foods will make an iota of difference in their intelligence by any measure, I promise you. Your kids will benefit from a good, healthy diet, and will be far more harmed by neurotic attempts to make them into prodigies than can be fixed by a South American berry.

In addition to Parents and Parenting, we also have lots of copies of Cookie. I don't know much about Cookie, other than that the cover moms are typically blond and famous. (Tori Spelling, Amber Valetta, etc.) However, I once had to do an office-wide purge of issues with Jenny McCarthy on the cover, because I'll be damned if I give that lunatic publicity in my office.

The last magazine that we have in spades is WebMD, apparently now available in glossy, dead tree form. It has "MD" in the title, so I assumed it was OK. Right? Right? No, I suppose not.

This is rather a quandary. On the one hand, I hate to think that having the magazines in my office implies any kind of endorsement of their content. On the other hand, I'm hard-pressed to come up with a better solution. Most of the information in these magazines appears to be anodyne, and congruent with what you'd find in most "lifestyle" magazines. So, if for no other reason than sheer laziness, I'll probably just leave them where they are and hope nobody starts flooding their kid with pomegranate juice.