It was inevitable.  A new world of "babytronics" is opening so that technology's children might enter the magical world inhabited by their text-messaging, palm-piloting parents.

The NY Times of 2/28 had a page of intriguing products such as the "Always Clear Pacifier." When baby hurls it to the ground it falls backward, on its handle, which activates a plastic shield that snaps closed over the nipple, keeping everything clean. What happened to the simple clip to baby's shirt that Kip the pacifier off the floor?

Or how about a "Baby Care Timer" which is a sort of digital personal assistant to help parents keep track of how long it has been since baby fell asleep, was fed, had a diaper change... It seems to be enormously popular since 25,000 units have already been sold.

But my eyes really widened at the "Lena System Language Measurement" tool. It is based on research that showed the correlation between the amount of time parents talk to babies in the first three years of life and their professional success later in life. (Can one sue parents who didn't talk enough? Who supplies the raw data for such a statistic? Does the baby-become-adult remember?

This pricey little device ($399) includes a pocketed baby's garment into which the device is slipped, to be retrieved and later plugged into a personal computer—which, of course, needs special software—and then the parent discovers how many sounds he/she and the baby shared that day. More importantly, they also learn how they measure up against the rest of the American population.

That is the scary part. We keep setting up Procrustean beds of standards that fit none of us. The stunning failure of No Child Left Behind is bedeviling the American education scene. Talk to any parent or any teacher of our over-tested, over-evaluated youngsters who long for learning to return to classrooms where too much time is spent on those dreaded tests that pit Tim from Texas against Mary from Maine. Have we all forgotten that no two children learn at the same rate nor in the same way?

And now we are pitting babies and their over-anxious parents against each other too. If you are neither parent nor child, you are not exempt. Workplace productivity standards exist for every situation, and some managers delight in applying them.

This might be the day to recall Psalm 37:7:

"Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices."

And don't forget to smile.