Smile though my heart is breaking

Michael Jackson's death deeply saddened me. The reason is not readily apparent. Perhaps it is because, in spite of the devotion of his fans and the inordinate amount of attention his death commanded across the globe, he seemed smaller than life - a little figure on a large stage, whom everyone used for their own advantage.

Michael Jackson was an unlikely hero. There can be no disputing that he possessed a unique talent, and there can also be no disputing that he was a tortured soul. Michael's favourite song was a song written by Charlie Chaplin, another tortured soul: "Smile (Though Your Heart is Breaking."

The boy Michael Jackson was exploited to fulfill the dreams of his family; the man Michael Jackson carried on the abuse tradition from a position of power. While he was acquitted of the actual charges of child sexual abuse, there seems little doubt that he used his vast wealth to lure children into his home and that the parents of those children were dazzled by his fame and fortune.

Michael Jackson used others to achieve his fantasies, even to the point of deploying unusual means to produce three children of his own and keep their mothers out of their lives. Society turned a blind eye to this abuse just as it did when Nadya Suleman gave birth to octuplets in January 2009.

Nadya's children were conceived through in-vitro fertilization, although she had already produced six children via this method. Why would a single mother with six children be a candidate to have more children thorough artificial means?

No one seems to be looking out for the rights of children. Michael Jackson, himself the unhappy product of a dysfunctional family, was allowed to indulge his every whim, even when the precious lives of children were involved.

Why do people have children in the first place? In Michael's case, it seems he rushed headlong into trying to recreate a childhood he never knew. His ranch, Neverland, was a child's fantasy complete with live children. Whether there was any actual sexual abuse may never be known. But there need be no sexual abuse for children to have been abused and exploited by their parents and Michael.

Nadya's reason for having children was that she loved them. Is that a good enough reason for a single person with no visible means of support to have fourteen children by artificial means? Do some people have children like others have cars or houses?

Michael Jackson's children will live with the knowledge that their mother gave them to their father for financial gain. They will live out their lives in the glare of the media. Has their father passed on the unhappiness that he felt throughout his life? Nadya's children will live in a freak show, like Canada's Dionne quintuplets, who lived for decades in the glare of the media.

My heart goes out to Michael Jackson and Nadya as misguided persons who put their own wishes over the well-being of the children they produced. But they are far from unique. Every day children are born into families who do not consider them precious human beings and who have nothing, emotional nor material, to pass on to them.

Should society support having babies when it appears no care was really taken considering how they are going to be looked after and what they will become? Is it right to do something just because we can? Is there any ethical use for in-vitro fertilization, if the rights of children are factored into the decision-making process? Should a woman use any means to have a child for such frivolous reasons as liking children, completing herself, or having someone to love and be loved by?

Scientists have now produced sperm from stem cells. Pretty soon a woman won't need any help from a man to have children. Perhaps a race of women only is the future of humans!

The interesting thing about having children without thinking through the reality of childbearing and child-raising is it's rare for anyone to factor their own unhappy childhood into the decision to have children. Producing babies is taken for granted and not to be questioned.

Writing this reminds me of my own isolated childhood. Born into a family that suffered the loss of an 18-year-old son and a husband and father, no one knows better how much of a toll family circumstances takes on a child. The child becomes the caregiver walking on eggshells, afraid to offend and cause more trouble.

In my case, like Michael Jackson there came the inevitable search for love, which thankfully didn't last long. Not that I found it, but pretty soon it became clear to me that the veneer of society covers the neediness in us all. Realizing that we are all in the same boat was the first step toward freedom.

It was a small step to go from the desire for love to acceptance of whatever life brings. It begs the question why Michael Jackson, with all his fame and fortune, could not have picked himself up, dusted himself off and started all over again.