A Seattle Times story reports the settlement of a lawsuit between the founders of a popular early-childhood video series and the University of Washington, which conducted a study seen as debunking the series' educational claims.

Recap: The UW study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, found that children 8 to 16 months old who watched Baby Einstein videos or similar ones fell behind their peers in language acquisition. Every hour of video watching cost the watcher, the child, six to eight words. ers.

Whether intentional or not, the study indicted a generation of parents who let their little ones watch videos as lazy, neglectful types substituting the TV for human contact. The study found a home on the front lines of the Mommy Wars where mothers with careers trade stinging barbs with mothers who don't work outside the home about who is the better parent. (Do men get dragged into these debates or is their ability to bring home the bacon and be a good father beyond questioning?)

Disney, which purchased the video series from the former teacher and mom who created it, took a $100 million hit by offering full refunds to parents who bought the videos between 2004 to 2009. Claims of educational benefits were dropped from marketing efforts.

Have we come to the end of this saga that stirred more anxiety than scientific answers? Maybe not. The original owners of the series, Bill Clark and Julie Aigner-Clark, successfully sued the UW to get the study's raw data and recreate the study.

Bottom line. Most parents struggle to do right, juggling economic challenges with the best decisions for their children. I used the Baby Einstein series for my son, not because I thought it would shape him into becoming another Einstein, but because the videos contained an attractive packaging of classical musical, poetry and traditional art from French Impressionism to Shakespeare mini-plays. All the things that I would include in my living room if I could fit, and afford them. They were not a substitute for the plays and museums we also visited. They did make for a soothing background accompaniment as baby and I explored a post-utero world. I never thought I was getting SAT-prep for babies, but rather a nice moment of Bach or the visual appeal of Van Gogh's starry skies.

The challenge for all parents is making sure it is just a moment and not an entire afternoon. Subscribe to this column's sage advice to worry less about TV or videos like Baby Einstein and more about how we're using them. Moderation, not demonization, is the key.

UPDATE: Whether the lawsuit settlement is redemption for Baby Einstein or something else is being hotly debated on Twitter. A funny tweet came from a Mom watching her son sitting sweetly shucking corn and singing a song that she is ashamed to say, "he might have gotten from watching Baby Einstein." The horror!
I can be found on Twitter @lkvarner.