Last night, we watched the first few episodes in the documentary “Quiet on the Set” about Nickelodeon’s House of Horrors describing everything from abhorrent treatment of female staff to outright sexual molestation of a child. After the first episode, I started watching it with a very honest What would I have done in the moment? It was one of the most profound parental life lessons I could imagine. As I thought about it, I wondered if I would have kicked into Momma Bear mode soon enough? Could I make the extremely tough choices that would affect my child’s career and happiness? Hindsight is always 20/20. But in that moment…what would I do?
What struck me the hardest was that “Quiet on the Set” was the perfect example of The Boiling Frog Syndrome. If you are unfamiliar with that term, here is Wikapedia’s description:
“The boiling frog is an apologue describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly.”
Read the last line carefully again. It is important.
The documentary starts with Dan Schneider’s rise in children’s entertainment. Staff writers describe the initial environment as being moderately “uncomfortable” at times. But like the boiling frog syndrome, the tepid water consists of vague innuendos that make the staff, children and parents a little uncomfortable (seems almost accidental) Over time, it progresses into very uncomfortable situations for the children in the name of comedy. The Documentary also shows how 2 pedophiles inserted themselves into these shows and became close to the children. But I was disturbed most by the way the children were encouraged to break ties with their parents. This was a blatant and even calculated move to remove the children’s protection. Wow. Now this seems rather familiar with what is happening in many schools systems today. removing parental rights? Hiding information about our children? Normalizing deviant behavior while condemning the concept of morality? Even the self-proclaimed “compassionate” politicians are flocking to this ideology to sell their souls for votes.
Eh hem….back to the documentary. According to “Quiet on the Set”, there were two pedophiles that interacted with the children. The first, Handy, sent a lewd photo to a child actress, Brandi. He admitted to having control issues around young children. Nope, sorry, I reserve my empathy for victims, not pedophiles. If you have any moral fiber, you don’t seek employment on a kid’s tv show. If I can reframe from doughnuts, he can reframe from putting himself in the midst of children. At least doughnuts don’t cause anyone else irreputable damage.
Then there is Drake Bell of Drake and Josh. He describes himself as the victim of sexual abuse around the age of 15 by Brian Peck. Peck, a dialog coach, inserted himself so completely into Drake’s life that he was able to convince Drake to remove his Dad, Joe, as the manager. Joe recounts the story with tears describing how their once very close relationship was severed quite intentionally by Brian Peck. Joe did not trust Brian and refused to let them be alone together so Brian figured out how to remove his Dad from Drake’s side. You can watch the show for the details on everything that went on, but this insertion enabled Brian to sexually molest Drake. It was a very calculated set of moves.
So far, we have 2 sexual predators and a narcissistic Dan, who obviously liked making the children and staff as uncomfortable as possible with inappropriate sexual innuendos. While the allegations against Dan in the first few episodes were mostly around discrimination, hostile work environment and the inserting subtle sexual references in a children’s comedy, he defended himself by shifting the blame to the network for approving the skits. He points out that the parents did not speak up during readings. Of course, it was pretty clear that anyone speaking up too much would quickly be removed from the show whether child, parent, staff writer etc.
Fast forward: There was plenty of damage to these children, parents and staff members. Besides the trauma these children suffered well into their adult years, these acts also ruined parental relationships and lifelong careers. And I am not sure it makes sense to lay blame on anyone except the perpetrators. As you can see, even attempts to remove the children from this environment had repercussions. The water was already hot. Brian Peck only served a 16 month sentence. Even so, some Hollywood names supported him, tried to rehire him for other shows and *accused Drake of being too tempting. Drake was later charged with child endangerment himself of a 15 year old, repeating the pattern of abuse. I doubt seriously, this is how Drake wanted to see his career path unfold.
When evil or deviant behavior is normalized in small doses it is the Boiling Frog Syndrome. In the moment, we do not have a crystal ball to see where it is leading. A small eyebrow raise is overlooked when we look at the possible career opportunities or happiness of our children. I don’t know about you, but I struggle with condemning a person for a minor infraction…the FIRST time. I want to look at the big picture and ask whether the minor infraction negates the overall experience. If you have been there, you know exactly what I am talking about. There is no easy answer. Did I hear that correctly? Did he mean it to seem that way? Was it just an accident on his part? We have very little time to react. And will we beat ourselves up for months/years for that in the moment decision?
John LOVED baseball and talked constantly about being a professional baseball player one day. In high school, he made the varsity baseball team which was well known for their streak of wins. Doing well on this team could get him a college ride and get him further to his chosen sports career. One day during a summer practice, he came home red as a beet, his breathing was labored and somewhat loopy His mom sat him down with water and started trying to get him cooled down. After a time, he finally seemed recovered enough to talk. His mom stressed that if he ever started to feel like that, he needed to sit down and drink some water. John disagreed saying that his coach said No Pain No Gain and that anyone falling out of the 2 mile run in 95 degree heat would be benched. His mom was quite upset. She reviewed her options:
- Go talk to the coach and hope that it doesn’t happen again (and possibly make it hard on her son’s relationship with the coach)
- Pull him off the team (which would devastate her son)
- Let it slide this time and hope that her son would tell her if anything more happened.
At first, she let it slide (#3) until one day she picked him up from practice early. The coach was screaming at the boys and the kids looked beyond exhausted. Her Momma Bear instinct kicked in. Right then, she filed a complaint with the principal and removed him from the team. Her son and her husband were furious. She had just ruined his career in one hasty decision. Things stayed strained for weeks until the end of the summer. 2 of the kids on the baseball team were in the hospital for heat stroke. John had been so furious with his Mom, that he refused to even join an extracurricular team in the community until a year later. After college, they finally seemed to reconcile and he admitted that he was thankful he did not stay on the highschool team.
These first episodes had me racking my brain. I don’t want to wait so long before I intervene. There is no crystal ball. So, I had to think about why I typically waited in the past and how a parent could overcome that paralysis in the future. And keep in mind, I am just discussing these ideas…this is not some How To article. Since I can look back on some of my choices, I can only share what I learned. I had one major hurdle that seemed to be a re-occurring theme: Innocent Until Proven Guilty. But this is not a court of law, if it gets so bad that I think the law should be involved, then I should turn it over to them. But until then, I need to give myself permission to act on comfort level.
- Is my child uncomfortable with this situation? If so, that is enough of a reason to pull them.
- Am I uncomfortable with this situation? Ditto
- Are there other indications that this person’s behavior will continue or get worse?
- Do I trust this person to be alone with my child? (even if that situation doesn’t seem likely)
- Are there other options for my child? I learned that if I entertain other options (no matter how realistic they seem to be), I do not feel as trapped.
Finally, the most important decision helper for me:
I do not need 100% proof that this situation will eventually hurt my child, my discomfort with the situation IS ENOUGH for me to put an end to it.
I thank my lucky stars, that we navigated some uncomfortable situations before the frog boiled. My daughter did lose her passion for an activity she excelled in because of one narcissistic coach. While it infuriates me, she is in a different place today. God has his plan.
OK, so there is so much more to creating a relationship that will stand up to pressure from other adults disguised as mentors. And I’ll talk more about some of my accidental parenting techniques I found along the way. But I will end this with a prayer for all the parents out there who struggle with something similar to the Documentary. It’s ok to pull your kid from a situation that makes you or your child uncomfortable without proof that it is damaging. Talk to your kid and involve them in the decision. Don’t let a dream fog your vision and….
Don’t let the frog boil.
