All through our lives, we have seen the kids that become famous at a very young age, but later on are left in a very bad situation because they didn’t have a normal childhood growing up.  A lot of times they seem to end up as druggies, alcoholics, and criminals.  So now they are looking into passing a law that will ban child performers in the United States.  It sounds like it would fix those problems, but would it really?

            The term ‘child performers’ can include actors, singers, gymnasts, and many others.  Child performers are sort of an exception to the Child Labor Laws, which could be seen as a problem at first.  But then when looked into the issue further, you can see that there have been many federal laws passed to protect child performers on several different matters.  One law, the Coogan Law, was passed to ensure a child actor will receive a certain percentage of what they earn later on in life, so that their parents can’t take it all. 

            We do have some bad examples of child actors who end up later on with a really messed up life, but those are the stereotypes.  This pattern has been broken in several cases, including Christina Ricci, Shirley Temple, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Kurt Russell.  As they reached adulthood, these actors/actresses either pursued another career path in their life, or continued on in acting.  Dakota Fanning, who has played in several movies since she was 5 years old in a commercial.  In 2009, she decided to stop acting until she finished high school.  They chose to keep making something of their life rather than reaching their climax at a young age and then quitting. 

            In today’s world, the big thing in movies is to make it as realistic as possible.  If child performers were to be banned, this would create a problem seeing how many movies need teens and younger kids in them.  Picture the first Harry Potter movie, Matilda, or A Christmas Story with the main roles being played by 18-year-olds.  It wouldn’t really have worked, and none of those movies would have been nearly as successful.  Even if child performers were banned, wouldn’t they still do it illegally, anyway?  Several young, upcoming performers would simply lie about their age.  And if they were performing illegally, they wouldn’t have any laws that would protect them. 

                        If someone has a talent, such as acting, playing a sport, or playing the piano, they probably enjoy doing it.  Should the government be able to restrict young people from doing what they love at the level that they’re capable of performing at?  If parents think that being successful at such a young age is a bad thing that would be bad for their child, they should be the ones from stopping it.  If the parents are worried that their child won’t be receiving enough education since they’re spending so much time training, then the parents can monitor that and decide which aspect is more important in their child’s life.  There have been several actors/actresses (such as Jodie Foster) that have continued on to college after their young career came to an end.

            Perhaps quite a few people who become famous at a young age ended up with a ruined life.  But it can’t be completely blamed on that fact.  It all depends on how that person decides to act, and whether or not they want to progress anymore after they’ve peaked.  If they aren’t able to continue performing after they reach adulthood, they should find a new career, or do something else productive in their life.  They don’t have to become the stereotype.  Making a ban on child performers would just ruin a lot of chances for young people with talent, and plenty of fans would end up pretty angry also.