Parenthood: There Ought To Be A Law

By Diane Clehane

Why is it that you need a license to drive a car or own a dog but any idiot can be a parent?

This is something that I’ve often thought about over the past four years as I’ve come to understand that nothing you’ve done previously prepares you for the life-changing experience of raising a child. But it’s worth noting that love, common sense, and willingness to put your own needs second to your child’s pretty much will get you through most situations.

That is why I am so sickened by the ongoing freak show of low-life ‘parents” who are using their children to gain C-list fame by scoring their own reality show. The list of these losers gets longer and more sickening every day. “Octomom” was barely out of the delivery room when she inked a deal for her “docu-series,” which mercifully bombed. Then there’s those pathetic New Jersey “Housewives” who don’t seem to care that they’ve become famous because people love watching a good train wreck. On their un-reality show, former stripper and alleged gun moll Danielle, who uses her young daughters as sounding boards on her sex life, is locked in an on-going catfight with trash-talking “so not a stage mother” Teresa, who is living vicariously through her precocious young daughter’s fledgling career as a child actress and model. And she just gave birth to another daughter who, I’m sure, is being primed for stardom as I write this. Yeesh.

Don’t even get me started on the trailer trash who tote out their tots on TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras. Does the name Jon Benet Ramsey mean anything to these people? And, of course, no list of pathetic parents would be complete without those standard bearers of irresponsible parenthood played out in excruciating detail for the entire world to see—Jon and Kate Gosselin.

Apparently, these people are, God help us, inspiration to scores of wannabes. The latest entrants into the worst parents in the world competition are the seemingly fame-obsessed Heenes who, once they tasted a bit of the TV Kool Aid after filming two appearances on Wife Swap (on which Richard’s incessant use of expletives had the producers going heavy on the bleep button) decided to shoot for the moon by hijacking the media—and plenty of public sympathy—by launching what authorities believe to be an elaborate hoax involving their six year-old son, Falcon, and a homemade flying saucer.

I admit, I sat transfixed last Friday watching what looked to be a giant sized pan of popped Jiffy Pop popcorn sail through the sky in Colorado and teared up thinking that a little boy could be trapped inside. I, like most of America, feared the worst when the contraption came down in a cornfield two hundred miles from the Heene home and police found it was empty inside.

Although we now know that the authorities investigating the incident were on to Heene’s alleged scheme before most of the general public came around, I—like millions of others watching--smelled a rat when, during two morning-show interviews, the parents continued telling their story to the camera even though “Balloon Boy” Falcon appeared very out of it and then began vomiting. Concerned mom Mayumi did have a container on hand for her son. How thoughtful. That was when I knew: these people are up to no good.

Can any caring parent imagine proceeding with a television interview while ignoring a sick child who’s been so traumatized by the unfolding events that he’s physically ill?

I submit my theory on this crazy crew: with the news that’s come out recently that Heene and his wife will be charged with conspiracy– among other things—and that they were in cahoots with people that were going to help turn this sham into a reality show, I think those kids are in real trouble if they stay in that household. Think about it: If six-year-old Falcon wasn’t sick from the experience of being airborne, he was physically stressed enough over angering his father by playing around the “flying saucer.” Maybe he thwarted some other part of the plan we don’t know about. And now, of course, since the boy told Wolf Blitzer on Larry King Live the family “did it for a show” and blew the lid off the scandal, Daddy must not be too happy with him. Richard Heene’s flashes of anger that made it to the air on Wife Swap may provide a dangerous window into what family life might really be like.

Who are these people? And what is it about our culture that has them multiplying like cockroaches? I get that, in tough times, escapism if attractive fare for entertainment. But watching other people take advantage of their children—who have no say in the matter—for the sake of a television show is just wrong. I used to tune in on occasion to marvel at how the Gosselins were handling their eight kids when I was home trying to figure out how to take a shower with a year-old baby in the same house. Ever since the central focus became the Gosselin’s disintegrating marriage, it felt wrong to be a party to the implosion and I stopped watching.

Both Kate, with her weed-wacker hair and weepy Today Show appearances, and Jon, who actually was clueless enough to tangle with Nancy Grace on Entertainment Tonight, are really cautionary tales for a fame-obsessed society. You reap what you sow, people. And next time you happen to see a photo of the older Gosselin twins, check out how angry one of the girls always looks. A lifetime of therapy awaits. I pray Kate doesn’t get a spot on the talk show she’s going for—rewarding her for her addiction to fame will own spawn more imitators.

I think the most crushing punishment we, as a society, could ever hand down to these parents without the sense they were born with is to ignore them. Banishing these bozos to oblivion would be worse than anything they could imagine.

If a woman drives to the mall with a minivan full of kids and no one is there to take their picture, has it really happened? Yes—it’s called life. And it’s time these people let their kids have some semblance of a normal one.