Would you want your son/daughter to be a child star? (1 Viewer)

[FUBAR]

The bieber "news" and other childhood star issues prompted a conversation yesterday. My wife would be vehemently against letting our kids star in a tv show or get a record deal, even if they did have talent. I agree that I wouldn't want them to get too big during their formative years, but a small role in a show or movie would be okay. We'd continue to teach values and help them save their money, but it does seem to add to the challenge of raising kids.

I wouldn't want them to be any bigger than a Chandler Riggs type, recognizable but not someone too famous world over.

 

[danielmclark]

Yes, in a heartbeat. Because I know my kids, I know my family, and I know that either one of them would be one of the boring child stars you hear nothing about after they outgrow the "child star" phase.

Most child stars are like that, you know. Think about the tawdry tales of teen stars gone bad... how many can you name? Probably all of them. Then consider how many child/teen stars there are. The ones that go off the rails are quite few, really. They just get all the headlines.

 

[mr roboto]

No. It's not healthy for a kids psyche to have that much attention and expectation placed on them.

 

[bigbottom]

For a kid to be a child star, you pretty much have to affirmatively pursue that as a parent for your child. I'd never pursue it, so I guess my answer is no.

 

[DSP]

Take my 15% while they do all the work and carry all the baggage in to adulthood?

Hell yeah

 

[DiStefano]

No. It's not so much the attention and money they would get, but the probable disappointment of their life after that. Bill Bradley (for those who don't remember, he starred in the NBA and went on to be a US Senator) talked about the frightening thing of being a successful athlete: that for most of them, for the rest of their lives, their greatest days lay behind them. Nothing to really look forward to, no future achievements which could match what they had once achieved. If that it true for an athlete, think of what it must be for a former child star.

 

[T Bell]

No. It's not healthy for a kids psyche to have that much attention and expectation placed on them.

Even if they're not out partying, the "rush" from the attention, etc. is a lot like a drug that a lot of kids have trouble living without when it's over. It's even tough for adults who are thrust into the spotlight all of a sudden - an example I came across once was that at least one of the rescuers of Jessica McClure essentially got addicted to all of the attention that came to him in the form of print and TV interviews and when the media attention moved away he was left jobles and developed a drug problem.

It's the rare person who can come through that and be "normal".

 

[FUBAR]

No. It's not so much the attention and money they would get, but the probable disappointment of their life after that. Bill Bradley (for those who don't remember, he starred in the NBA and went on to be a US Senator) talked about the frightening thing of being a successful athlete: that for most of them, for the rest of their lives, their greatest days lay behind them. Nothing to really look forward to, no future achievements which could match what they had once achieved. If that it true for an athlete, think of what it must be for a former child star.

This seems to be the case for many high school athletes and cheerleaders.

 

[Ketamine Dreams]

No. The monetary gain isn't worth it

 

[DiStefano]

No. It's not so much the attention and money they would get, but the probable disappointment of their life after that. Bill Bradley (for those who don't remember, he starred in the NBA and went on to be a US Senator) talked about the frightening thing of being a successful athlete: that for most of them, for the rest of their lives, their greatest days lay behind them. Nothing to really look forward to, no future achievements which could match what they had once achieved. If that it true for an athlete, think of what it must be for a former child star.

This seems to be the case for many high school athletes and cheerleaders.

True. I remember reading about somebody who had left his small town in (Texas?), and returned there 10-15 years later. He went to the bar where he used to hang out with his friends from the football team, and there most of them were, seemingly stuck in a time warp, where the high school days were the glory days.