I discussed the other day the incomprehensible behavior of the parents who sacrificed their children to the upcoming CBS reality show “Kid Nation.” Now some of the details of the agreements the parents had to sign are starting to leak out. What has our society come to when a parent is willling to sell their minor child away for a shot at tv fame?
In return for letting their little precious have a shot at reality fame, the parents greedily signed on the dotted line of a 22-page contract basically turning their child over to strangers. All for $5,000.
The parents and the children agreed not to hold the producers and CBS responsible if their children died or were injured, if they received inadequate medical care, or if their housing was unsafe and caused injury.
Now this is where is really gets insane…
But while such agreements might be standard for adult participants in a reality show, it also takes on a different tone when the minor and the parent are being held solely responsible for any “emotional distress, illness, sexually transmitted diseases, H.I.V. and pregnancy” that might occur if the child “chooses to enter into an intimate relationship of any nature with another participant or any other person (my bold).”
So who is “any other person” on the set if the only kids on the set are the participants!!!! Adults! So these parents pimp out their kids to an uncontrolled environment, acknowledging that they take responsibility if any other person (read “adult”) impregnates a 12 year old girl or transmits HIV or assorted STDs to their 8 year old! What if a pederast preys on the 15 year old boy? No problem since the fees have been paid in exchange for silence. What goes on in Kid Nation stays in Kid Nation.
This is insanity. On the parents’ part and on CBS’s part. The parents pimp their kid so they can say “my kid’s on tv” and most likely in the process transfer the idea of celebrity onto themselves. Now that’s being media psyched to the worst extreme!