“Hello? Anybody out there?” - Part Three

We were talking about Parents:

“Axiom:” an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth.
If you do not believe
that children need and deserve
special treatment
then read no further.
I will not engage in a battle of wits
with an unarmed person.

The time has come to restate the obvious. The rules are different for children. Everybody get that? That the rules for working children are different is not some abstract postulate. The rules are different because children are not adults. Kids do not have the armament of Adults.

The cornerstone of unionism itself came about on the backs of working children (England, 1811) because it could NOT be argued that an impoverished nine year-old working in a coal mine knew what he was getting into when a mining machine tore off his arm. From this simple recognition that a coal mine was not a safe work site for children came the axiomatic recognition of the unsafe conditions themselves, and from that grudging acceptance of the deadly reality of working in the mines came the entire underpinning of organized labor. ipso facto

There have always been employers willing to place profit above morality. Hollywood is no different. The Entertainment Business…and it's a business, not an art…is uniquely placed in the world of employers because it can and does routinely employ children. The most curious facet of this juvenile labor force is that Hollywood never suffers from a lack of potential employees. The children come to them by the thousands, and all of them are brought to the auction block by their parents, against whom the kids are, in fact, powerless to "disobey." The process of entering the Industry is based on another "axiom" since an exchange of money is part and parcel of the employer/employee relationship. Again, ipso facto.

As surely as the rules must be different for children, so too must the equation change when children are, to be blunt, put up for sale.

Working children are the property of their parents. They are chattel…in fact and in law. The impolite word for chattel is Slave. i.e., 1: a person held in servitude as the chattel of another. 2: one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence.

Make no mistake about this postulate. Show Business, at the professional level, is not the same as trying out for the class play, the cheerleading team, or Little League. Money is on the table. Even the auditioning process is brutal. The investment on the part of the parent in time and money is significant, ranging from the cost of headshots and parking fees to the necessary costs of training in the performing arts. Time spent preparing for auditions…time in the car, time away from paying work, time for which the parent is not compensated…is a measurable commodity, and on this level alone one can find plenty of reasons to view the entire process with some skepticism, for you see, at the end of the day, if the child actually wins the competitive audition and books a job, the parent is expected to show up with their child on the day of the actual production, commanded by law to be "within sight and sound of their child at all times." And for all this expenditure of Time, what does the parent receive? Absolutely nothing.

Everybody get that? A stage parent is sacrificing all this Time without compensation. This dirty little secret is at the core of many of the problems show business families encounter. Imagine being compelled by law to attend a high-dollar work place (where even the lowest-paid laborer is paid upwards of $30.00 an hour) and being the only person on a working set whose time and contribution to the enterprise is an indisputable fact, and yet the Parent/Guardian receives nothing. This is not a positive environment for any thinking adult.

There are often 100 kids auditioning for a one-line, one-day job on a commercial that pays $750.00 for the day's work. That means there are 100 adults on that audition, too, although they never get into the inner office where the child's talent is judged. If the total time for this single audition is just two hours for each hopeful what you actually have is 200 hours of uncompensated Parent Time and 198 hours of attractive but unsuccessful kids giving away a free performance. How's that $750 sound now? Most national commercials, the typical entry-point for kids in the Industry actually average $4,500.00 in actual pay spread out over a full year when all residuals finally come in (contrary to the nonsense widely publicized by the ill-informed press of $100,000.00 paydays).

Hollywood depends on this ceaseless sacrifice of the many to the benefit of one. That's why it is so vital that a prospective stage parent only bring a truly talented child to the alter of fame and glory, a child that at least stands a chance of winning a competitive audition. Otherwise, what's the point? The odds are already stacked against you. It's the nature of the beast.

Among professional child actors…kids who have already booked TWO paid jobs and have joined any of the theatrical unions (a pretty steep buy-in, by the way)…the turn-over rate is 20% per year! One out of Five children with a professional resume' will drop out of the business every year, so your chances of still being around the Industry, even after winning two paying gigs, are vanishingly small after five years.

This turnover rate is actually a sign of parental mental health. Money is the way we keep score in this country and 95% of all stage parents and their children wisely choose to end their participation in show business and move on to other, more productive pursuits. That's a good thing. Most show business families make the perfectly reasonable decision to abandon the Game, no matter whether the experience has been good or marginally pleasant, and move on with their lives and the arduous business of seeing that the children are growing up well. I can also say that most "sports parents" make the same kind of decision when it becomes obvious that their child has no future in organized sports. By age Twelve almost 75% of all children involved in organized sports have stopped their participation, freeing up their Time for more productive endeavors.

For stage parents and their offspring, these are the true odds of success. Most families make the rational choice and step away from the business with their dignity intact.

I have gone on at length about these root issues…the "axioms" at the core of kids in show business…because, as with HIV-AIDS education, an entirely new population of kids is at risk every five years. The alarming part for me and the reason for these lengthy essays is that there has been an undeniable decline of competence in our culture, and with that decline has come a new breed of Parent, less educated, less skilled, less informed yet filled with self-esteem who, in a return to a medieval mindset, believe absolutely that they know best what's right for their child. Remember that 40 years of declining scholastic test scores and rising drop out rates are produced by real people who, God help us, have children.

Untested Self-Esteem is not the same as Competence. Ask any classroom teacher, family counselor or a Social Services case worker.

Let us review: 1. Parents are not perfect. 2. The rules for children are different. 3. Children are the property of their parents. 4. Show business is a commercial enterprise.

The evidence for our cultural decline is everywhere around you, dear reader. There is a connection between the 40 sets of parents who gave their children away to "Kid Nation" to the anonymous parents who put their preening half-dressed daughters on the Internet. Britney, Paris, Lindsay and Nicole are merely high-profile extensions of the fouled nest of childhood that is all around us. With thanks to my colleagues at the Campaign for the Rights of the Child, there are certain facts when it comes to children in America…children who are NOT to blame for the world they were born into…that you simply must acknowledge. Kids in Show Business just do not magically appear on the scene. They come from us, from our society, from their parents. We're the responsible parties. Stage Parents are not conferred some special status that exempts them from human nature. Stage Parents are vulnerable to "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to."

I urge you to go to this Link and see for yourself why I have been compelled to write these essays. There is a myth abroad in the land that America's children, as a class, are perfectly protected by the folks who are in charge of their lives. Please, read this document…and then we'll be on the same page so we can discuss, "Where young performers come from." http://childrightscampaign.org/documents/Facts.pdf

To be continued……..