Friday, July 18, 2008
Why doesn't America value it's children more?
The other night my husband Bob and I were at home relaxing and watching TV together, holding hands as we do, and it was a choice between "Gay, Straight or Taken" and "Baby Borrowers". The choice of these two was narrowed down by me, your expert Harvard grad on duty! My husband said we would be "all the dumber" after watching either one of them, so we settled into "Baby Borrowers". This is a new summer show on NBC, and the premise is that a teenage couple thinking they are ready for kids takes a child around two years of age and babysits them for three days. The parents can watch them at continously on a video screen as there is a camera posted in the apartment where they are staying with the child. And that is the first big problem with this show. From the point of view of the child's emotional development, you absolutely do not remove them from their parents and put them in a completley new place with two strangers for three days! This borders on child abuse. I distinctly remember a course I took at Harvard when I was getting my master's in Human Development, in which we were taught that any separation for a period like three days from a child and their parents, particularly the mother who is primal, can result in lifetime emotional damage for the child. This is not a scenario where mommy and daddy go on vacation for three days and leave their precious progeny with Grandma and Grandpa. In that situation, the child would be comfortable emotionally in a familiar environment with adults he or she knows and is able to trust. I wonder, are these parents paid to have their children on this TV show? To make matters even worse, there is a "nanny" who is posted at the apartment with the two teen "parents" watching the child on video. When she sees anything awry that could harm the child, she automatically steps in to take over. For example, one time she came on camera berating a teen "father" who took a 15 minute shower and left the child all alone walking all over the apartment unattended! He claimed the "mother" never let him know she was leaving the house so he just took his shower as usual. They obviously had major communication problems and weren't reponsible enough to be left alone with the child, but what about the child? The mothers would cry from as they watched the child cry on the screen in their new environment with strangers, particulary at tender moments like bedtime, because they would see their child suffering. Of course the child was going to cry and act insecure in this new situation--what would a normal adult do if placed in a strange place with two new strange people to "take care" of him or her with no warning? It would be like being scooped up by an alien to a new planet with new living creatures for three days. So what's the bottom line? That it's not just this show that's very, very wrong. This show, which is being highly promoted by NBC, reflects the values of our American culture in the year 2008 in which children often come last. Child abuse and child sexual abuse are rampant, not to mention that the schools are not working at a basic level so many children in this nation are in fact, literally left behind. Watch this new show and write in here to tell us all what you think about it, and what your reaction is to seeing children punished for crying when they are left with complete strangers in a new place for three days just so the network and the parents can make money. Thanks!
posted by meami craig at 9:47 AM
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