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Curious Rentals

From the people who brought you (though you didn't know it) RentMySon, it's RentMyDaughter.

Surprisingly, it appears to be legitimate, though the testimonials are a bit thin and I would hardly be amazed to find it's just a well-done gag. I've barely looked over their material. We have two people talking it up for different reasons. One because he rented a child so he could pass her off as his niece and play up the prospective family man role in front of a co-worker, which he claims has resulted in them getting engaged -- I guess they're going to elope and he's hoping to avoid family reunions for the rest of his life. Another claims to have essentially rented an escort for his son for a school dance, which is both sad and likely the plot seed for an upcoming motion picture.

I don't know, and I don't believe I really care enough to want to find out if I'm just an easily-gulled rube. It isn't as if I'm looking to use the service after all.

Here's one "rent me" self-promotion, reportedly from Meliss, age 12:
About Me: I am the one on the left swimming with my little sister in our pool. I love swimming and want to be on the high school swim team in a few years. Now that the summer is coming I hope this website will have some people throwing pool parties. I did this last summer and have been complimented on how I make unpopular or unattractive boys feel comfortable and have fun in the pool at their parties.


(Thanks to Tammy for this one.)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Jesus.

Well, I looked the site over. At the moment, there don't seem to be all that many parents pimping their kids out, which is something, anyway... although I wonder how much of that is simply a publicity challenge for the RentMyKids corporation. If these guys get a national ad budget, watch out... it will be like Dickensian London all over again, just, you know, on the Internet.

John Brunner has written quite a few novels exploring the notion that of evil being quite simply treating other human beings as chattel, or objects. I've often reflected he may very well have a point, in which case, there is something essentially evil at the heart of capitalism... but leaving that aside, there's certainly something quite blatantly evil about renting your kid out to decorate other people's social functions.
6:04 PM
Mike Norton said…
The angle that tilts some of that for me -- though I'm not quite sure of the direction -- are the pieces written by the kids themselves. On the one hand it gives it a positive spin, that the kids are taking to it as a job, which could give them some valuable experience along with letting them sock away some cash, but on the other it has them looking at their childhoods as commodities with a limited shelf life. What it's teaching them about human relationships isn't something I feel up to speculating on right now.
6:32 PM
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