Let the Children Be

Friday, July 10, 2009

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Let the Children Be

By J’AMY PACHECO

Several days ago, I grew teary eyed watching Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris, tell the world how much she loved her daddy.

As I wrote here last week, my first thoughts upon hearing of Jackson’s death were of his children. I don’t know much about them, but I know enough about children in general to recognize that being orphaned can only be a devastating tragedy in a person’s life.

And I know enough about today’s media practices and the seemingly insatiable desire the masses have for celebrity gossip to know that his kids were in for a very rough ride.

Within hours, so-called professionals were analyzing the child’s spontaneous display of emotion. When would she heal? How would this help? What did it all mean?

Before Jackson’s final resting place had been selected, the online media had sunk to the level of speculating about the paternity of the singer’s three children, going so far as to plaster photos of his dermatologist all over the Internet and publicizing the doctor’s past…er, biological donations.

Never mind the fact that the tears Jackson’s children shed aren’t even dry – how will any of this ever be our business?

The day of Jackson’s service at the Staples Center, we came together as a community and paid tribute to the man and his music. People were respectful. The streets were quiet and calm. It was a day of which Los Angeles — and its well-known police department — could be proud.

The next day, city officials were being criticized for spending the money to establish a significant police presence. Surely, I’m not the only one who remembers the events that took place when people last gathered around the Staples Center – when stores were looted, fires were started and people generally lost their self-control, all because their basketball team won.

I can only assume that had the LAPD not established a significant presence, the department would have been lambasted for its lack of preparedness.

It seems that we have become a society that is happiest when pointing fingers, criticizing and passing judgment.

Sure, Michael Jackson was eccentric. But I think we need only examine our treatment of his family over the past few days to understand why the man masked his children before bringing them out into the public eye.

There are things my family does that makes others question our collective sanity. If we’ve been anticipating the release of a movie or book, we’ll show up at midnight. We don’t mind waiting hours and driving long distances to do something we think will be cool and unusual. Once, we waited for hours in line behind thousands of other people just to be able to see author Stephenie Meyer and the cast of the film, “Twilight.” And it was worth it.

People who know us don’t understand why we spend a small fortune each year on annual passes to Disneyland, or how we can visit the resort every weekend and still want to go back.

Few people understand our love of fashion dolls, and our motivation for attending a doll convention in Las Vegas every summer. They don’t get why we sometimes go bowling in our pajamas, or why we’ve driven long distances several times recently to help complete strangers pull off complex marriage proposals.

We do these things because they make us happy. Why anybody would waste a moment contemplating my choices is beyond me. It seems that time would be better spent finding ways to make their own lives more interesting and fulfilling.

We obsess with the notion of celebrity. We root for the underdog, but as soon as someone “makes it,” we wait for a mistake, and we eat them alive to satisfy our hunger for this “news.”

Consider Emma Watson, the lovely young woman of Harry Potter fame. A gust of wind opened her beautiful gown at the new film’s premiere, exposing her underwear. In a decent world, we’d all avert our eyes. Instead, she was photographed, and the underwear photo was sent around the world.

Still we wonder why people like Michael Jackson go all out to protect their privacy.

Jackson’s children are young. Everything about their future is uncertain – who will raise them; what will be left to them after the fights over custody and finances come to a conclusion.

Let’s leave these kids alone, and give them a chance to be normal.

But let’s remember that “normal” is a relative term.