There’s a national train wreck happening, and I have to admit – I can’t look away. The adventures of the Heene family and their “balloon boy” son, Falcon, have kept me both oddly disgusted by—and addicted to—my television.
A brief re-cap: last Thursday, the media started reporting on rescue attempts aimed at saving a six year old who was thought to be adrift hundreds of feet in the air, after sneaking into a home-made hydrogen balloon. His brothers had reported seeing him sneaking into the balloon, which soon thereafter became un-tethered. For hours, local police, national guardsmen, firefighters and others tracked the balloon calculating how they could get it and the boy down safely. But when the balloon eventually returned to land several hours later – it was empty! Hours later, young Falcon was discovered in a box in the rafters of his attic, said to be hiding there because his “dad had yelled at him”.
All the great elements of a classic happy ending story right? Well, it would be classic if the family in question had not appeared on Wife Swap twice and didn’t sleep in their clothes because the father is a storm chaser and they might need to jump up at any moment of the day or night to ride into the eye of a tornado. But hey, all’s well that ends well.
Not quite.
Hours after their terrifying experience the family was able to begin the healing with a well-placed interview on Larry King Live—during which Falcon let slip that daddy had told him the whole thing had been “for a show.”
Awkward silence ensued.
Continuing with their media blitz the following morning, and now on the defensive, Richard Heene tried to explain away the incident while his son threw up on live television, much to Meredith Veirra’s horror. (And my secret delight.) Now it turns out that the family, who has been shopping around a reality tv show, very likely STAGED THE WHOLE EVENT (gasp!) and charges are likely to be pressed.
So why is this all so compelling to me? I certainly don’t wish anyone harm and I feel incredibly sorry for children who are manipulated by fame-seeking parents. But laced in there, subtly, is perhaps a little bit of satisfaction: maybe the hub and I are not doing such a bad job as parents. Sure, our supervision of homework might slip, we might be a little lax on the junk food from time to time and occasionally let our temper get the best of us. But when push comes to shove we’re doing all right.
Sometimes parenting is a wildly insecure business—and if there are days when the only thing I feel proud of is the fact that I haven’t staged a national hoax to bring attention to me and my family, well then, I’ll take it.
But we’ve got the balloon on stand-by, just in case.
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