https://madamenoire.com/1074787/a-lot-of-parents-are-willing-to-ship-their-kids-off-to-beyonce-and-jay-z-for-money-and-im-shook/

Source: MediaNews Group/East Bay Times via Getty Images / Getty

Media personality Van Lathan posed an interesting question via his Twitter account recently, it was directed specifically at parents.

I’m not a parent but I had strong feelings about this question from the moment I finished reading it. I love me some Beyoncé. Her talent, her work ethic, her music, her movement, I think she’s a beast. And Jay Z is cool too. But I don’t know her. So the thought of sending my child away to live with the couple is out of the question, I don’t care how much money is on the table.

But to my surprise, a lot of parents on the internet didn’t share my feelings. Most of the responses to Lathan’s question went as follows.

When The Shade Room posted the question the responses over there were similar. My sister even noted that comedian D.L. Hughley, who has plenty of his own money, responded like so, “yall make sure you brush after every meal and say your prayers. We gonna buy you something nice with this lil 10k we got for letting you stay with uncle jay and aunite bey.”

There are several things at play here. One, I was raised with overly cautious parents, especially my mother. We were given explicit instructions never to sit in any man’s lap. There were several conversations about our body parts, boundaries, privacy, good touch/ bad touch.

Two, there are members of my family who have been the victim of sexual assault at the hands of other family members and people they knew, so anyone can be a potential threat.

And lastly, I watched HBO’s Leaving Neverland documentary not too long ago. And literally, Michael Jackson asked Wade Robeson’s mother if he could keep her son in his care and in his house for a full year. And while there are several mistakes Wade’s mother made along the way—including leaving him with Michael for a week while the rest of the family went to the Grand Canyon—she had enough sense not to leave her child with another person for a year on end.

When we, as a community, discuss Michael Jackson or R. Kelly, we question how the parents let something like this happen. We wonder why they were so trusting with their children. And for me, it’s not that hard to see why. Celebrity, particularly in America, is not only powerful, but it also gives us the false notion that we know these people. When we really don’t. I’m not making any type of judgment about Beyoncé and Jay Z as it relates to child abuse. But three million dollars—or any other dollar amount is not worth the risk.

What’s really interesting about Lathan’s question is that it’s purely hypothetical. As far as I know, he doesn’t share a particularly close relationship with the Carters but even the suggestion from him, an outsider, with far less fame has folks shipping their kids down the river. Imagine now, what people, parents would have done, if Beyoncé, Jay Z, Michael Jackson or R. Kelly had made this request themselves, in person with all we know about their fame, talent, riches and influence? Then we get a clearer picture of how and why parents made the choices that they did, even in the midst of red flags.

In Lathan’s question, he says that parents can only speak to their child once a week. That alone is fishy. Why just once a week? Why is access to my child being limited? That was not a little condition.

I don’t know if D.L. Hughley runs his own social media account. I don’t know if he typed that comment. And the following is not meant to shame him—but he knows firsthand what it’s like to have his child be the victim of sexual abuse—by someone he did know very well. The idea or even the suggestion that he would still after all he’s experienced, be willing to ship his kids off to strangers is unfortunate, to say the least.

I posted Lathan’s question in my Instagram stories and my friend responded with a sad truth.

“Girl, people ship their kids off because they don’t want them in the laundromat with them. The money just added the hell yea factor.”

I told y’all, I’m not a parent, so I can’t even imagine the mental, physical and emotional work that’s required to raise children. I have no idea. But what I do know is that children, generally, are only in our protection for a short period of time. And we can’t risk their physical and psychological safety for anything—especially not something as hollow as money. It doesn’t matter who it is.