Saturday, May 20, 2006

OK, enough already: Britney nearly drops baby in front of paparazzi. You know, I'm not exactly a Britney Spears fan, but the leering joy the tabloid journalists seem to get out of Britney's parenting skills is really beyond the pale. This latest story is an embarrassment for the profession I work in – some writer spews out 10" on a mother who stumbles a bit while carrying her baby. And this is front-page news on Yahoo.com right now, in a story by the Associated Press, the biggest news gathering biz in the country.

For crying out loud, parents screw up all the time, and in much worse ways. Parenthood is one long series of near-mistakes. I won't excuse the Brit's also well-publicized child car-seat snafus, but y'know, at least she isn't leaving a kid at home in its own filth while she shoots meth or something. Hell, she's even carrying the kid instead of a nanny doing it. I guess I'm old-fashioned, because as warped a figure Spears probably is over having been famous since age 8, she's still a human being. Trust me, if I had paparazzi scum watching every move I'd made with our kid the last two years, I'd look like an idiot, too. The tabloids cackling over every diaper rash and fashion faux pas she makes has the feel for me of a gang of villagers tossing fruit at some criminal trapped in the stocks. It's a geek show, a carnival.

And this is NEWS. Some days, I regret my profession.

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