Thursday, March 19, 2009
Mysterious Benedict Question 4: Sticky
Sticky runs away from home because he thinks that his parents only want him for the money his quiz show earnings have brought to their impoverished family. Do you think it was wrong of them to allow Sticky to become the breadwinner of the family, given their situation? What would you do if one of your children suddenly presented the family with such financial potential?
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4 comments:
This is a very difficult question because it is easy to sit back and say what terrible parents Sticky's parents were. But I think that most of us, presented with the same set of circumstances would probably do the same thing, or similar things. I will admit that if my child had a love for an activity that provided us with the potential of earning money, I would probably move forward with it. As long as it was something the child loved. Maybe that makes me a crappy parent but I am just being honest. It would be hard to turn our backs on that possibility.
While I would definitely let my kids participate in whatever they wanted, I can see how that could very easily get out of control. Seeing the messed-up pop stars and child actors that our society has churned out thanks to parents who weren't able to control the situation, I would be wary. I would hope that I would know where to draw the line, but I guess that it would be impossible to know where that line would be ahead of time.
Hmmm... having done the modeling thing with a couple of my kids, I can speak from experience when I say the amount of work required of the parent is HUGE. There were weeks that I was traveling to NYC multiple times. So there was money invested as well. I could not have done it AT ALL if I had had an office job, or any job for that matter. It requires availability within 24 hours, etc.
Had one of them become successful at it, I think I would have taken the money from each job and put it in a trust for the child, less a 15% management fee, with myself being the manager. If the process required no or even minimal sacrifices on the part of the parents, I would say all the money should go to the child, but the fact is that it IS a lot of work for the parent.
I finally wrote a letter to the agency saying that we just couldn't do it. I had too much to juggle. The kids were disappointed, but if they decide to do it again when we're better able to (i.e. when the baby is older), I'll let them if I can.
I think Fiona is totally right. If Kaeli's chosen dream required me to quit my job to help her realize it, then I would definitely take out a certain amount. The rest would go in a trust for when Kaeli was older.
This is such a dated reference, but I saw one of those True Hollywood Story things about Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen once and there parents did a really great job of managing this exact problem.
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