Commercial Child Abuse?

Today I am on a rant!

Have you seen the stop smoking commercial in which a little boy, perhaps three years old, is walking hand in hand with his Mother?

They appear to be in a large busy hall, perhaps a train station or something like that. People are walking to and fro.

All of a sudden in the commercial, as the Mother walks with the little boy, she disappears and you see the child looking all around for her, but with fear growing in his down turned lips. He breaks into sorrowful, deepening sobs looking for his Mother as people pass him by.

The commercial is meant to emphasize that smoking will kill you and leave your young ones and family alone.

I have no quarrel with reasonable stop-smoking advertisements.

I do have a major quarrel with the director of this commercial and the people who paid for it. I am especially upset with the parents who allowed their child to be placed in a situation where he did not know he was safe, where cameras filed his obvious state of terror.

This child was not acting. No child that young could put on such a realistic performance. This was real. This child was traumatized and abused. It appears that for the sake of money paid to them - I repeat - for the sake of money paid to them, the parents allowed their child to be terrorized and abused.

Shame, shame, shame on all involved in this commercial. Child abuse is not always physical. It is too often mental and unacknowledged by society.

It makes me want to take up smoking in protest!