An unusual choice in parenting

Rielle Hunter appears with her four year old daughter on the cover of this week's People. Gulp.

While I am glad that the 4-year-old got to hear her father publicly acknowledge his love for her on the steps of the courthouse, I'm not sure that seeing her face above the Mentos at the checkout counter is good for her.

Nor do I think she needs to know all about her father and the shabby way he treated her mother, as well as his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, the mother of Quinn's half-siblings.

I understand she's too young to understand all this now. But once it's in the public domain, it's out there. I remember reading Jane Fonda's account of discovering the truth about her mother's death. Jane was 12 when her mother committed suicide during a stay in a sanitorium. Her father believed his daughter was too young for that information and told her instead that her mother had been admitted to a hospital, where she suddenly suffered a heartache. Jane later discovered the truth while at school. A stack of magazines had been left out for the students to use for a project, and in one was an article about how Henry Fonda's wife offed herself with a razor blade while in a mental institution.

I hate the thought that Quinn will stumble upon this issue of People someday. I wonder what impact this will have on her relationship with her brother (12) and sister (14).

It's not just glossy magazines, either. Ms. Hunter has already appeared on 20/20 and is scheduled for Piers Morgan Tonight and The View. I imagine that the questioning will be uncomfortable (if not brutal). With the wonder of YouTube, these interviews will live on forever.

I'm just a barren spinster, but this doesn't seem like smart parenting to me.