About three months ago we received so much comment spam for the now-failed E! reality shows “Pop Fiction” that I was compelled to write a story about it. In that case the spam was coming from a public relations firm that thought that a good way to generate interest in their client’s shows was to make obnoxious comments full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes on celebrity blogs. (Neither the public relations firm or E! responded to our multiple requests for comment.)

People for “Baby Borrowers” left over five spam comments here. They were under different names and all from the same IP address, which was easily traced to NBC Universal. The comments weren’t that obnoxious and there weren’t that many of them so I just sent a warning message to the person’s listed e-mail and asked them to cut it out. We got a few more but not many, and they were on the “always send to moderation” list at that point. NBC is a big advertiser of ours, which also influenced my decision not to call them on it.

Here are the two samples I saved:

Baby Riot: What is Baby Borrowers? When is it on?
From Jamie Lynn Spears has a baby girl, Maddie Briann (update), 2008/06/24 at 5:45 PM

Left of Center: Baby Borrowers should be on every teen’s viewing list!
Baby Borrowers should be on every teen’s viewing list!
From Jamie Lynn Spears has a baby girl, Maddie Briann (update), 2008/06/23 at 10:17 PM

Given that people for this show spammed the blog, which creates unnecessary cleanup and generally just pisses me off, I’m more apt to report a negative story about it. A child welfare group says new reality show Baby Borrowers is unnecessarily stressful for babies. Infants as young as six months are separated from their parents for long stretches at a time and presumably overnight in order to teach teens that gee, it’s hard to raise a child. Sounds like a fun concept except maybe they should go easy on the babies and only start with a few hours here and there and give them a warming up period to get to know the teens. But no, they have to stay with strangers for long periods of time or else it won’t make for good television:

The show installs five young volunteer couples in different houses in Boise, Idaho, where they’re stuck minding an infant, from six months to a year old, who’s been dropped off at their door. Three days later, the couple swaps a baby for a toddler. They soon swap the toddler for a teen and then have to take care of a senior citizen.

NBC.com describes the show: “When a real baby appears . . . the nervous, fumbling teens are in for three long, arduous days that make chilling out a distant memory. They must stick to rigid routines, handle the feeding chores, diaper duty and crying jags.”

But nonprofit group Zero to Three claims it’s a horrible idea and is now protesting the show, which premiered last week.

“We’re concerned about the fact that these babies are being separated from their parents and placed with strangers,” the group’s spokesperson, Tom Salyers, told Page Six. “A large body of research says the attachments that are formed between the people who care for them are very important.

“On the first episode, the babies were separated for about 12 hours and were clearly in distress. Typically they will cry and cling and search for their parents, which they were doing. They should be with someone they’ve had the opportunity to get to know.”

NBC has provided 24-hour nanny supervision for the families, and the babies’ real parents are stationed next door with a video monitor. They are able to intervene and help out at any time.

An NBC rep said: “The producers of the show took all the necessary precautions to ensure the safety and welfare of the children participating in the series. The environment was carefully controlled, and the children were properly cared for at all times.”

[From The NY Post]

It’s unclear from that story whether the babies stay with the teens for three full days with just small breaks seeing their parents or whether they stay 12 hours one day, 12 hours another day, etc. This group isn’t saying that babies shouldn’t be cared by people other than their parents, just that it’s important they get to know the people who care for them and have a long term relationship with them if possible. Of course babies are going to be upset when they go to a new daycare or get a new babysitter but you want to make the transition easy for them and not stress them out just to get a good scene.

I am lucky enough to work from home and was able to spend the first year with my son, with help from babysitters and neighbors, but now he goes to daycare. He’s been to two different daycares as we recently moved and both recommend a warming-up period for younger kids where you only leave them an hour or two the first day and gradually go away for longer periods of time until they’re used to the place and the new people.

It seems like with small infants they should have their well being in mind and to have given them time to get used to the new people. That would cost time and money, though, and these shows are all about exploiting even small babies for good television. It’s a decent concept, but since they spammed us and are separating infants from their parents in order to create a TV show, I can’t say I hope it’s a big success. The pictures sure are cute and harmless-looking, though, but it’s not like they’re going to put up photos of crying babies on their website. Damn I fell for that spam, didn’t I? NBC pays us, I should have left it up.

Here’s a clip. I wouldn’t want these idiots caring for my kid.

Thanks to NBC for these photos.