On Reality TV, Who's Minding the Kids?

Those shows come on the heels of CBS's 2007 "summer camp" reality show "Kid Nation" (billed as "40 children, 40 days, no adults"), which drew fire and headlines after one child reportedly burned her face and four children drank bleach from an unmarked bottle. The show was accused of violating child-labor laws, after parents -- who were not allowed on the New Mexico set -- signed a 22-page contract containing controversial liability waivers.

Some Hollywood insiders, however, make a distinction between story-driven reality TV shows such as "Kid Nation" and documentary shows such as "Psychic Kids."

Reality TV shows are "an opportunity for networks and producers to exploit kids' weaknesses, their frailties, their vulnerabilities, by putting them in unknown, shocking and often very embarrassing situations," says entertainment lawyer Robert Pafundi, who has represented reality-TV youths and child actors. "They're making the mistake of assuming that children are adults in little bodies and that they can handle all these things. And it simply isn't true."

Former child actors such as Paul Petersen (TV's "The Donna Reed Show") and Alison Arngrim ("Little House on the Prairie") worry that children whose lives are open for public consumption will suffer from the exposure as they grow up. Young children, they say, cannot differentiate between playing a role and playing themselves. Then, too, they point out, reality kids don't typically enjoy the legal protection -- or paychecks -- that child actors do.

"Yes, we are seeing more kids on reality TV," says Petersen, who says he created the organization A Minor Consideration in 1990 to advocate for child actors through legislation and intervention. "These are the signs and portents of a culture in collapse. We no longer protect children. We market to them. Gleefully."

"Networks are extremely invested in making reality TV," Arngrim says. "You have the 'Can you top this?' phenomenon." She says that reality TV stars such as Heidi Montag and Lauren Conrad of MTV's "The Hills" are now stars in their own right, gracing the cover of Us Weekly, launching their own clothing lines and demanding higher and higher fees.

"Networks need fresh blood. . . . So what do you do then? You get children," Arngrim says.

Shortly after "The Baby Borrowers" debuted last month, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry lobbied NBC to pull the show from the air, contending that the program could cause the on-camera babies and toddlers "distress and anxiety."

"You could take a quick look at it and say that's a good learning experience for teenagers," says the academy's president, Robert Hendren. "And it is. But it's a very poor idea for infants."

As the show's creator, executive director Richard McKerrow, sees it, "Baby Borrowers" is an educational tool designed to prevent teen pregnancy -- one that borrows from reality TV to keep folks engaged while it makes its point: Parenting isn't for the faint of heart and is best left to grown-ups. What better way to educate, he says, than to entertain?

"As long as it's done incredibly responsibly and with ethics, and as long as it has a good purpose, I think it can be a really, really good thing," says McKerrow, who has two young children.

McKerrow has no patience for the show's critics, saying, "Basically, television is easy to take a pop at."

Natalie Nichols, who became a mother as a teen, is one of the parents who consented to let their children be cared for by the teenage couples on "The Baby Borrowers." She says that she sees the show as educational and that it can teach young women not to make the same mistakes she did -- though she first had to persuade her husband to let their then-6-month-old and 18-month-old children participate.

Nichols says she was impressed by the level of professional baby-proofing, the professional on-site nanny, the psychological testing, the background checks and the psychologist on hand. "It was safer than any kind of child care that I've ever been a part of," she says.

"People might be negative and say, 'Oh my gosh, you left them,' " Nichols says. "But they were left in very good circumstances. And it was for a very good cause."