Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Kate Plus 8 and Children's Privacy

You may have already heard the glorious news....

Kate Plus 8 has been cancelled.

The show seemed to start the reality show trend of putting children's personal lives on television. You might be asking: what's wrong with that?

Well, for starters, I'd never want my mom to share her vast home video collection of me and my silly antics with the world. I would have probably been okay with that when I was a kid. Because I didn't know any better. These kids are far too young to understand what it means to have your personal life public and so aren't mature enough to make the decision to be on tv or not -- if they were even given the choice.

It has generally become trendy and very acceptable to divulge personal aspects of children's lives thanks to social media, specifically mommy blogging. I have been appalled by the information and photographs people publish on the internet of their children. Tales of diarrhea in public (actually in one Jon and Kate episode, the kids were sick and the cameras followed Kate around as she collected their soiled clothes and linens), pictures of scarred, bloated faces after surgery... I understand that motherhood is tough and social media provides a network to vent and read, but does that trump your child's right to privacy?

7 comments:

  1. I had a fairly traumatic childhood through illness and surgeries and I faced a lot of challenges along the way. It was bad enough having to deal with them in private........

    I'm with you on this one.

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  2. I'm sorry you had to go through that, Morning AJ. I think my own experiences with illness and disability have informed my opinion on this... Thanks for your candour and opinion.

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  3. Well, reality shows can be damaging to those involved, even adults. Recently one of the husbands of a housewife reality show, hung himself. While he may have had underlying emotional problems, fact is, he was going broke trying to maintain the expensive lifestyle characteristic of the show's families...I wonder how that will be worked into the show's second season?

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  4. I think we have gotten a little warped in what passes as entertainment. Let's all calm down a little, people.

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  5. Mythopolis - That's sad news.

    Bossy - Yes, entertainment has been redefined, it seems.

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  6. You make an interesting point about the kids being exploited on television without a choice. But hasn't Kate been able to gain financial freedom from the show? I haven't watched that show at all, but that seems like a good reason to do it. Hopefully the kids won't get exploited later on in life just because of the show.

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  7. Sir Lancelot - I've heard the financial freedom argument before. I'm still not ok with this at all. Thanks for your comment. I hope they won't be exploited too, but I have a feeling they will be... Besides, TLC will continue to follow the family in specials, I read on the news. So it's not over for them yet.

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