Thirteen Year Old Climbs Everest In Epic Feat Of Daring/Child Abuse

Thirteen year old Jordan Romero of Big Bear, California has just become the youngest person to climb Mt. Everest. While there's no doubting that reaching the summit is quite an achievement at any age, one must question the wisdom sanity of his parents in allowing him to attempt it. Though it's far less dangerous than it used to be, climbing Everest is still serious business - to date 216 people have died attempting it, according to Wikipedia, and every year that list grows. Furthermore, if you should suffer a misfortune on the higher slopes of the mountain, it's quite likely nobody will be able to help you, or even, for that matter, retrieve your body should you expire. It is, in short, no place anyone who can't make a fully informed, adult decision to voluntarily place his or her own life at great risk ought to be.

If we're going to prohibit minors from drinking, driving, having sexual contact with adults, and a host of other mundane activities on the grounds that they're not mature enough to engage in such behaviors responsibly - and no one with any sense would argue that we shouldn't - there's no way we should be letting them climb Everest. The government of Nepal, sensibly, recognizes this, and has imposed an age limit for climbers, but China for some reason has not, even though mountaineers consider the route to the top from Tibet a more difficult climb. That Romero made it to the top is a great human interest story. Assuming he makes it back down, we should all be thankful it turned out to be that, and not a tragic anecdote of terrible parenting.

Socially Acceptable Child Abuse Alert

In the wake of the Jon Benet Ramsey murder case and the success of the pageant-themed black comedy Little Miss Sunshine, the view that childhood beauty pageants are profoundly creepy exercises that prematurely sexualize young girls and are likely to be harmful to the process of healthy psychological development has become widespread - and rightfully so. In my opinion, anyone who enters their daughter in such a pageant is committing child abuse. Why, though, is a five year old weightlifter any more acceptable? The linked article takes the "wacky human interest story" angle on the boy, with no more than a nod at the elephant in the room (the line about how weightlifting "may be unhealthy" for a five year old).

I'm not a pediatrician, but even I know there's no "may be" about it - lifting heavy weights is not a healthy activity for a young child to engage in. It's bad enough for an adult - whose bones are fully grown, whose joints have hardened, and whose soft tissues have reached their adult strength. For a child whose body is still growing, it runs an intolerably high risk of serious injury, and if it's continued, is extremely likely to cause serious health problems later in life. And that's without even getting into the psychological effects being involved in such a ruthlessly competitive activity at an early age may have. Is this kid taking his Juicy Juice laced with HGH? Will his next round of shots include a cycle of anabolic steroids in addition to polio and tetanus vaccinations? Seriously.

I don't object to this being a news story, but it should be reported as what it is - a case of irresponsible parenting bordering on abuse - not a cutesy "kids get involved in the darnedest things" throwaway piece.