Sick of Baby/Child death on TV...

[kater07]

Ok, so I watch WAY too much TV, but I was noticing that on several different shows (including ones I do not watch) there's an awful lot of child death, kidnapping, abuse being shown these days.

Before DS was born, I don't remember every show having something to do with that. I get sad after watching shows I normally really like (CSI, Law and Order) because I fell bad even for made up imaginarey parents when they lose a child. It sickens me that in reality, the things that these shows depict actually happen. Kids disappear every day, babies are abandoned every day, and the child abuse continues to worsen in our country.

I was just wondering if anyone else is affected by all the violence against kids shown on TV lately.

[chellemarie]

There's a thread in another forum here about "Friends" and the writers' treatment of Rachel's baby. That's NOTHING like the shows you mentioned. Is watching the news and reading the papers making us so callous to violence that our entertainment can only move us if they murder and abuse babies and children?

A show you didn't mention that I think is by far the worst: Judging Amy. It's just disgusting. How is that entertaining!?

[Piglet68]

I so TOTALLY know what you mean! Ever since I became a mother, I react viscerally to stuff I see on TV. It's not like I ever enjoyed watching stuff like that, but it's really different now.

Those "feed the children" ads make me nauseous. There was some cop show on while I was flipping channels that had a 7 year old girl as a rape victim. I felt sick.

I find myself being forced to switch channels often now. In one way, it's very interesting to me to see the change in me. All part of that maternal instinct. OTOH, I have to wonder why this stuff is on TV in the first place? Is most peoples' real life experience so lame that they like watching this stuff? Anybody who has ever come close to this must react the same way and wonder why thisi stuff is so popular.

[HotMama]

All this cr#p on TV is making people distrust each other and afraid to let their children interact with their community. I hear so much fear in people and these show/news just fan the flames. Anything sensational, as long as the corpration in control says OK. Statistically, all these crimes are not on the rise, they are just splashed all over the TV (and radio even) to distract us from the bigger issues of our time. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I'm glad we don't have a TV and I rarely listen to NPR for news anymore.

I'm climbing down off my soapbox now...

[USAmma]

Thought this would be a good forum to bring up a program called Murder is Not Entertainment, sponsored by Parents of Murdered Children. As the sibling of a murdered child it's painful for me to watch this stuff, because it makes me relive parts of what happened to my brother. So I don't watch it. And I spread the word. I doubt it will affect the programming of the big networks, but it may at least get people to think about what they are watching. It's not entertainment, it's sick. I think shows like this cater to the same part of our human nature that causes us to slow down at a car wreck and gape at the people being put into ambulances.

For more info please see the site below, and feel free to pass it on.

http://www.pomc.org/mine.cfm

Darshani

[chellemarie]

Piglet...one of those "feed the children" ads has a guy walking with a small girl down a rocky street and he's saying it's so sad that her family can't even afford shoes for the poor girl.

If he was really that damn concerned about her feet, he should have picked her up and CARRIED her for the duration of the commercial and then he should have put some shoes on her!! I yell "PICK HER UP!" every time I see that ad. Makes me furious.

What's probably even more ridiculous: It's highly possible NO ONE in her village (or whatever) wears shoes. But I'm probably dumb enough to believe not having shoes means you're super poor.

[bluebird]

Man I love this thread

i don't know why, but i have always been highly sensitive to any type of violence on tv. it makes me feel like i'm being suffocated or like i need to vomit. and i wonder how people watch this for enterainment?!
almost anything horrible i have glanced at on tv i am pretty sure has actually happened to some real person in the course of history and i find it impossible to subtract that reality and tell myself its"just a movie" or whatever.
i am really glad to see that other people know what i feel because something needs to be done, and how can we do it? i am going to check out some of these web sites already mentioned.
my tv lives in the closet, and only appears for that seventies show and baby einstein movies from time to time. as a parent i have a real obligation to monitor what my girl takes in for as long as i possibly can. i find it so infuriating that commercials and movie previews on tv can be as graphic as they are. so even if you approve of a show who knows what you might be subjected to for commercial breaks. let's see last night i saw some pretty disturbing shit that kept me up for a while. no need to describe it.

what can be done? do networks listen? the only thing i know to do right now is keep it off as much as possible.
it's nuts to think of kids just taking that stuff in and how their minds must process it.
the only thing that saved me from ppd was figuring out that i was paralyzed with fear from watching oprah and the news. if something is serious enough that i need to be informed, my mom will call me.

SORRY TO RANT! i am very passionate on this topic and would love some direction/channels for taking action.