The TV just happened to be on last week as Daughter 1 and I
sat together in the living room. Neither
of us was actually watching it, or so I thought, as we each had an electronic
device in our hands and we were bonding over a riveting game of Words With
Friends. (She won.)
In the midst of my adding an S to an already existing word –
I don’t remember what word – she said, “Why would they show that?” I glanced up at her to see what she was
wondering about and her wide eyes were fixated on the television screen.
I turned my head toward the TV and simultaneously grabbed
the remote, wondering what gore or obscenities I had just unwittingly exposed
my precious daughter to. What I saw
seemed fairly harmless: A doctor or
scientist in a lab coat standing in what appeared to be a television-created lab
holding a can of whipped cream.
“Not this part, Momma,” she said, swiping the remote from me
in a very practiced move. “This part,”
she said as she rewound the footage until it showed a scene from Intervention in which two kids were
doing “Whip-Its” and then the man in the lab coat, proceeded to explain to all
viewers exactly how one could strive for and achieve this cheap high.
For a moment – a moment that’s not entirely passed from my
mind – I wished she had witnessed gore or obscenities instead. I glanced at the clock: 5:45 – a time when
some children (if not most) children may be still home alone and watching this
without a parent. I sucked in my breath
at the thought of the kid who watched this scene and then remembered the
whipped cream can in the fridge from last night’s ice cream sundaes. I was saddened for the children who saw the
two-plus minute segment and didn’t stick around (or tuned out) the less than
30-second blurb about the harmful effects of abusing your body in this
way. Heck! I was sitting on the same loveseat with my
kid when we saw it, and I was mortified!
Then I remembered it was my daughter’s comment of “Why would
they show that” that prompted my own viewing of the incredibly horrific choice
of news stories. I turned the tables on
her.
“Why do YOU think they would show that?” I asked.
“Ratings. And because
they wanted people to watch their show about that celebrity,” she answered.
“Yeah,” I conceded.
She was wise beyond her years. “There was an actress who overdosed doing
that.” Then I pulled a picture of Demi
Moore up on my computer and showed her.
“She’s, umm… pretty…,” she started – and my heart sank. “Dumb,” she finished. And my heart leapt.
Pretty dumb is right.
Dumb on both parts: Demi’s stupid
choice to participate in the activity and the network's stupid choice to teach
the kids at home how to do it themselves.
Too bad smart decisions don’t get good ratings.
