Toddlers and Tiaras

I have heard people say that they do not watch reality television because the programming does not resemble reality. They say it is staged. I am not sure about that. I believe that the reason reality TV is so disturbing is that it is too close to reality. When the mob wives curse each other out and start fist fighting each other they are not faking it. Their bad behavior is their reality.

There was a news report this morning on something called Go-go juice. But I missed what the report was about to attend to morning chores. So I googled it. The first thing that popped up on the computer screen was an organic pear juice company. I knew that wasn’t what the fuss about. Second on the listing was a Mom who gave her 6 year old a concoction which was part Mountain Dew and part Red Bull---called go-go juice-- to reeve the child up to perform in child beauty pageants. This is what all the controversy was about. And it was brought to light from the television show Toddlers and Tiaras.

Watching Snookie make out with Dina in a blacked-out drunken state on The Jersey Shore is one kind of disturbance—they are adults. But documenting a parent giving a child what amounts to dangerously high levels of sugar and caffeine to propel the child into a frenetic state is another--especially to perform in an already quasi-inappropriate competition. But apparently the Mom tried “energizing” the child with 2 bags of pixie stix—called pageant crack—but it just didn’t work as well as the Red Bull spiked Mountain Dew.

I am not an expert but doping your child with caffeine and sugar creeps dangerously into the red zone. The child’s welfare is at risk. And the justification the mother gave for its usage is at minimum—warped. She said something like it isn’t as though I am giving my child alcohol---as if giving her child a performance enhancing drink(?) was no different than giving a child a glass of milk---yeah like the “milk” Michael Jackson liked.     

A few years back a couple in Marrietta Georgia was arrested for feeding their children to the point of extreme obesity. The charge was felony medical neglect. Somehow I do not see that over-feeding a child is any different than over-serving high levels of sugar and caffeine. Both cases warrant intervention.

They say that truth is stranger than fiction. In this case truth is more disturbing than fiction. Toddlers and Tiaras (unfortunately) is not staged.  It is real. And the reality is that reality TV is reality way too much of the time.