Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: 40 Children, 40 Days, No Adults

And 40 sets of parents who ought to be charged with child neglect and abuse.

Reality TV is bad enough for society as we watch adults who choose to humiliate themselves and each other for money or fame, and we as a country who get a kick out of watching adults make asses and fools out of themselves ought to be ashamed. But, at least we are talking consenting adults who lower themselves to be a part of such appalling circuses.

What about those children on talk shows? You know the ones I mean. "My Teenager Acts Like a Whore" and "My Grade School Kids are Brats." Shouldn't putting your children on display as failures and emotional disasters and victims of pedophiles be tantamount to abuse? I sure as hell think so. I would like to see it be illegal for kids to be paraded by their sick parents on such shows and I think we should all be writing letters to complain to the networks that promote this atrocity.

But just when I thought it couldn't get worse, now we have children turning into "Lord of the Flies" so we can get our fill of this sick thrill in the comfort of our living rooms.

Children are supposed to be nurtured, respected, and cared for by responsible adults twenty-four hours a day. Although "Kids' Nation" claims it is like summer camp, I don't know of any kid's camp where the ratio of adults guiding children is 0 to 40. Even if the children are in a "safe" setting with adults lurking on the outside of the performance ring, the purpose of parenting is not to watch your kids go at it with each other, fend for themselves, make their own rules, and only step in when your child has suffered enough emotional damage to be removed from the game.

I guess this is a "fun" experiment, to see if the children will become as deranged as those in William Golding's horrifying story. Woo-hoo! Wouldn't that make those TV ratings soar!

I feel ill.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown