A Nation of Balloon Boys

We may never really know if the Heene family truly played a hoax on us. I can understand why many people, me included, would believe that. After all, it's strange that a guy whose kid is believed aboard a flying saucer like balloon would call a television station before he called the police or that Balloon Boy, aka, Falcon Heene would remain hidden for 5 hours while the family and police called his name. Or perhaps, it was Balloon Boys own words on Larry King Live that they did it for the show.

Honestly, I don't think we will ever know. But even if you believe the incident involving Balloon Boy was a hoax, you must admit that the incident captivated our attention for most of Thursday. We empathized with his family. We imagined what if this was our child. As a nation, we were ready to employ every resource at our disposal to make sure he was safe without regard to expense. If Balloon Boy had truly been in that balloon or harmed that day, the outreach to his family would have been tremendous. We would have loved this family, took care of them and they would have been our national heroes. This is because for a moment as a nation we truly cared about something more than ourselves and what affects us. If only for an afternoon, we became a nation of "we" rather than a nation of "me."

This is why the current drama surrounding Balloon Boy is disheartening. The real question that deserves to be asked is not whether this was a hoax, but why does it take life threatening or major events like this for us as a nation to care about our children and families in need? There are so many other Balloon Boys in this world: children who are simply floating away. They are children who are living below the poverty line, without health insurance, in school systems refusing to educate them and without the basic resource needs such as books and living in environments where death is as common as the cold. These are the real Balloon Boys. They need us, and I wish that for one day, or even an afternoon, we would spend our collective attention, like we did Thursday, on them. Imagine what could be accomplished if we took even an afternoon and brought all resources to bear without regard for expense. Imagine how many of them we could save.

I suspect a whole lot.

In the end, it doesn't matter whether you believe the Heene family portrayed a hoax on us. After all, the possibility that this was a hoax appealed to the skepticism in us and transformed us once again back into a nation of me: reminding us once again why it doesn't make sense to invest our time, resources, and, most importantly, our resources in someone else's plight. Because of that, you have to feel sorry for the true Balloon Boys set adrift in this world.