Pimping Our Children

Many perceive Michael Jackson as the most tragic figure in his trial for child molestation. Even if this immensely talented performer ends up being acquitted, he has squandered his precious G-d-given gifts through profligate and selfish behavior, in the process destroying his life and his career. But Michael's reputation was in tatters well before the trial. In truth, the ones who have most suffered in this ugly spectacle are America's women and mothers.

Just when you thought that respect for women in our popular culture had reached its nadir, along comes a new stereotype: the mother as pimp. That is the conclusion one derives from the bone-chilling testimony of the mother of Michael's 1993 accuser, who testified about letting her son spend more than 30 nights with Michael Jackson as the singer showered her with gifts and cash.

Yes, she had her misgivings about allowing her son to share a bed repeatedly with a 34-year-old man. But every time a doubt arose, Michael would present her with another gift certificate to buy some dresses and the doubts would disappear.

Her testimony reinforces the most malevolent of modern female stereotypes: the woman devoid of maternal instinct, more interested in fame than in family, prizing money over marriage. Indeed, TV shows like "The Bachelor," books like "Queen Bees and Wannabees," and movies like "Mean Girls" portray women and girls as mean-spirited and narcissistic. They are cutthroats who go after each other with a viciousness that was once thought to be the province of men.

Even so, until now, no one had suggested that women have sunk so low that they would prostitute their own children in order to benefit from proximity to a superstar. But in revealing that she permitted her son to have unsupervised evenings with a superstar who had already been accused of pedophilia in exchange for material rewards, the mother of Michael's accuser has highlighted a frightening new sickness in the American soul.

In most criminal court cases there is a victim and a culprit, a party who is innocent and a party who is guilty. The Scott Peterson case is a classic example, with a guilty husband who murdered an innocent wife.

Not so in the Michael Jackson case. One of the reasons that this is the ugliest trial in memory is that everyone is guilty. Michael Jackson may be the one on trial for molestation, but equally culpable are the mothers who are testifying that Michael molested their children. Why did they allow their kids to be alone with an adult at night in his bedroom? Even if Michael is not a molester-and I pray that he is not-isn't the proper place for a child with his or her parents? Isn't the foremost role of a parent to be a guardian?

America has to wake up to the crisis of its own soullessness. The pursuit of money and celebrity has driven some Americans to use their own children as the means by which to obtain these rewards. In the past, we spoke of people being prepared to sell their souls to the devil in exchange for material benefit. But even one's soul was not as precious as one's children. Our kids were sacrosanct, and we protected them from our most evil impulses. Certainly, in certain cultures parents have given their children over to child prostitution. But this almost always happens in cultures where the parents are absolutely destitute and, in their mind, have no alternative. But prostituting your kids for a couple of dresses seems to be a first.

To be sure, the kids' fathers are equally to blame, and it is no coincidence that both of Michael's accusers come from broken homes where paternal supervision was either weak or nonexistent. But whereas the fathers in both these cases seemed to be highly negligent, the mothers apparently played an active role in allowing their sons to spend nights with Michael.

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