We have seen the commercials on CBS for "Kid Nation" and now we see a NYT article claiming that CBS is drawing claims of possible child abuse.
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 17 — The ads promoting “Kid Nation,” a new reality show coming to CBS next month, extol the incredible experience of a group of 40 children, ages 8 to 15, who built a sort of idealistic society in a New Mexico ghost town, free of adults. For 40 days the children cooked their own meals, cleaned their own outhouses, formed a government and ran their own businesses, all without adult intervention or participation.
To at least one parent of a participant, who wrote a letter of complaint to New Mexico state officials after the show had completed production, the experience bordered on abuse and neglect. Several children required medical attention after drinking bleach that had been left in an unmarked soda bottle, according to both the parent and CBS. One 11-year-old girl burned her face with splattered grease while cooking.
The children were made to haul wagons loaded with supplies for more than a mile through the New Mexico countryside, and they worked long hours — “from the crack of dawn when the rooster started crowing” until at least 9:30 p.m., according to Taylor, a 10-year-old from Sylvester, Ga., who was made available by CBS to respond to questions about conditions on the set.
Taylor and her mother, and another participant and his mother, all spoke enthusiastically about the show and said they believed the conditions on the set were adequate. But Divad, an 11-year-old girl from Fayetteville, Ga., whose mother wrote the letter of complaint and who was burned with hot grease while cooking, said she would not repeat the experience. She said there was no adult supervision of the cooking operation when she was hurt, although there often was an adult “chef” present in the kitchen.
Her mother, Janis Miles, declined to speak to a reporter.
A New Mexico official whose department oversees licensing of congregant child-care settings said in an interview that the project almost assuredly violated state laws requiring facilities that house children be reviewed and licensed.
Now, lets stop for a second here.
New Mexico definitely has the right and responsibility to get answers from CBS about any laws that might have been broken, but do the parents have a valid issue?
Any of us that are parents will tell you that it is the parents responsibility to ensure their childrens safety. Other than knowing CBS as a television station, did the parents personally know the people they were turning their children over to as defacto guardians?
I see nothing in the NYT article showing what kind of contract or paperwork the parents signed and what was contained within.
We do have accounts of monetary gains in this article, 2nd page:
But the parents were told before the children left to go to the set that they would receive a $5,000 stipend for their participation. The children also had the opportunity to earn a gold star that was given at the end of each episode — or roughly every three days of filming — that at the end of the session could be turned in for a $20,000 check. In addition, the children were assigned tasks and were paid for those with buffalo nickels, which they could then use to buy items at a dry-goods store or a candy shop or to buy drinks at a root beer saloon.
So, you hand your children, the most precious of gifts, over to strangers to be taken into another state without a personal guardian that you know and trust (Correction added thanks to and these "absent" parents NOW want to blame CBS for the working conditions and living conditions?
Are they claiming there was nothing in the paperwork they had to sign that informed them their children would be running this little town? Would be doing their own cooking? Would be working and setting their own hours?
It also bears mentioning that these allegations of child abuse, neglect and endangerment were investigated by the sheriffs department and they found no criminal activity.
Ms. Miles’s letter, which requested an investigation into issues of child abuse, neglect and endangerment, was sent to her local sheriff’s office, which forwarded it to the sheriff’s office in Santa Fe County. Greg Solano, the Santa Fe sheriff, said he had investigated the allegations but found no criminal activity. He sent the letter along to civil authorities.
Once again, any laws broken in Mexico regarding the housing of these children are between NewMexico and CBS, but I would be very, very interested to see the what was in the papers or contracts the parents signed.
Where does the ultimate blame lay?
On CBS for creating a show to make money on their network, which is their job?
Or with the parents that did not do their job in making sure their children were protected?
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