Anna Sharp (August 2, 2011) - I've always loved a good do-it-yourself project. My family is so encouraging and supportive whenever I come up with a new idea, because the results are usually such that they have something to laugh about together and mock for years to come. There was the time in middle school when I gave my sister a perm...she's getting married later this year and won't even let me do my own hair for the wedding. In college there was an incident with an heirloom piece of furniture, a motorized spray gun, and explosive lacquer fumes. Everyone also loves to reminisce about how when planning the birth of my first child, I decided to opt for the natural anesthesia of self-hypnosis. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say that both the home perm and the refinishing debacles involved way less cursing.

So when my husband and I, who both only speak English, decided we wanted our daughter to learn a foreign language, he quickly suggested Language Stars. Otherwise I might still be singing "Frère Jacques" off-key and in a terrible accent, or subjecting our family to hours upon hours of a certain cartoon starring a little bilingual explorer who only ceases her high-pitched monotone yelling long enough to lodge inane songs in your head. You know who I'm talking about...I won't slander her name here, but it starts with the letter D, like devil. No matter how many times she and her cohorts demand "Say it with me!," my daughters just sit there expressionless, thumbs lolling out of their mouths. They seem incapable of blinking, much less of uttering a response.

Not that educational TV and videos don't have their uses—twenty-five minutes of semi-conscious children is a godsend some days—but even this would-be DIYer has to admit that some things, like language instruction and your great-great-uncle's highly flammable oak chifforobe, are best left to the experts.