Psychic Children – For REALZ!!!

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There is a show on A&E that makes me wish that Satan was real. It is called Psychic Children: Children of the Paranormal. It is a truely horrendous show, with Chip Coffey, a "psychic medium" (AND a holder of the prestigious Master's in Pyschology!!!) and Dr. Lisa Miller, "renowned psychologist and Columbia University professor", supposedly helping these children "deal" with their special gifts.

My favorite part of the website:

When your child comes to you and says, "I see dead people." What do you do with that information? There are parents who are scared and isolated with problems that they often keep quiet – issues dealing with their children's paranormal abilities. Now, thanks to Medium Chip Coffey and renowned psychologist and Columbia University professor, Dr. Lisa Miller, help is on the way. Each one-hour episode features three kids who ultimately are brought together by Chip and Lisa to learn how to cope with their gifts and to realize they are not alone.

Let's see, my child comes to me and says he sees dead people. So I take him to a psychic? Really? Not his pediatrician, or a psychiatrist, or a therapist, but a fucking psychic? Clearly these people think that it is better to have a kid who "sees dead people" than a child who has mental issues or a great imagination.

The reason that all of this hits so close to home is obviously related to both my past and my present. Growing up, my mother was(is) convinced that she was(is!) psychic and could see ghosts. However, even though this scared the bejesus out of me, she thought she was making things better when she told me that ghosts can't hurt me. Oh, thanks! They can watch me masturbate at night, but they can't hurt me. (Luckily for me, this fed right into teenage exhibitionist fantasies and worked well for me! Oh you like to watch, don't you Casper? You want to have a piece of this, but no, you are all incorporeal, aren't you?)

By the time I was old enough to notice that my mother's psychic abilities seemed to correlate with her heavy usage of mind altering substances, I did not believe in ghosts anymore. However, as I used to say, I was still an atheist during the day but a vehement Catholic at night.

When I had children, I decided that I would tell them the truth about the world – the scientific natural truth. When my older son asked me about death, dying, and ghosts, I told him that there was no evidence that ghosts existed, and that people have been searching for years. I also told him that some people like to pretend there are ghosts, and that it can be kind of fun. After attending Dragon Con in Atlanta last year, I was also able to let him know that a brave man named Ben Radford is a real life ghost hunter, and that he has never found a real ghost, or a real monster. In fact, at night when I am scared of the dark, I still ask myself "What Would Ben Radford Do?" (And no, I don't mean in the same way that I would talk to Casper as above!!)

So, bottom line, ghosts are bullshit, and A&E is a horrible network for exploiting these possibly mentally ill children. BUT, it is interesting to me that my son had a hard day at school on Friday,where I had to go pick him up and was very, very angry at him. I even entertained a fantasy in my head where I run away, move to San Francisco, and become a celebrated author. Last night, the same son got in bed with me after having a nightmare. And was his nightmare full of ghosts, werewolves, monsters, demons or Sarah Palin??? No. My son's scary nightmare was that he and his brother were in our minivan and that it was on auto-pilot and I was nowhere around.

Holy fucking cow! My son not only sees dead people, but they can apparently read my mind!