A Tan Kid is a Healthy Kid.

I understand that the law is the law, but come on.

Please try to follow me, here, because I think my logic is pretty gull durned sound. Okay, what's more important to America's future than healthy children? Nothing, right?

And how do we know our little angels are healthy?

I'll answer that for you, and you're welcome in advance. The best sign of a healthy, prosperous child is a deep, fudgy tan.

Sometimes our legislative mechanisms can be so fickle. Medicinal marijuana can be as legal as Skittles in some state and municipal jurisdictions, yet strictly verboten at the federal level. Waiting periods are necessary to purchase firearms, with the exception of gun shows, where you can trade a pouch of Red Man and an vinyl copy of Nugent's Cat Scratch Fever for a nice used Glock.

And in the state of New Jersey, Patricia Krentcil has been charged with child endangerment for allowing her six-year-old daughter to use a tanning booth. Apparently, New Jersey's puritan statutes forbid anyone under fourteen from entering a sun casket.

Holy sweet mother of George Hamilton! It's early May. How is this kid supposed to get a nice bronze base when it's fifty-five degrees and cloudy? What is little Ultra Violet Krentcil or Carcie Noma Krentcil or whatever her name is, going to do in the absence of a eighty degrees and SPV Number Three cocoa butter?

Here's mommy.

How old do you think she is? Before I knew, I guessed that, with a six-year-old daughter, she'd have to be at least twenty-two, but twenty-five, tops.

Are you ready? She's forty-four, which is why this law is so freaking ridiculous. Free Patty Krentcil!

We parents, while faithfully maintaining no agenda but our children's best interests, are frequently misunderstood, so why is everyone so quick to judge this woman?

When my older daughter was six and acquired head lice at school, she witnessed an event which some, including my wife, may assess to be traumatic and ill-advised, yet quite well-intended. Rather than performing the deed out of her sight, I placed every one of her stuffed companions into a large garbage bag to suffocate any parasites, sealed it and hefted it down to the basement.

Upon witnessing this CSI Sesame Street, my girl flew into a panic stricken hysteria, and prompted my bride to look at me like a huge yeast infection in a Seattle Mariners cap.

I'm a guy who, if I hadn't entered the graphic design field, could have easily been a Navy SEAL, so I'm always thinking on my feet, and this episode was no exception. I bolted down to Target and bought my cherub a stuffed Hello Kitty doll as compensation for making her watch Raggedy Ann and Andy Go to Jonestown.

My wife's face displayed a new look this time, one which said, "Just when I thought you'd earned your masters degree in stupid, you fast tracked to a PhD. by buying her another stuffed freaking animal!"

Her eyes congratulated me as Hello Kitty said goodbye on her way to the polypropylene penitentiary in the basement.

Oh, I've done other things which have met the gross misunderstanding of my partner, like opening up a gash on the back of my baby daughter's leg by playing "Who's Daddy's pancake?" with a sharp, plastic spatula, or instructing the hair dresser to keep taking more off the of her hair until we both realized she had a mullet.

Yes, it was picture day.

But just like Tom and Katy's seemingly crazy practice of dressing five-year-old daughter Suri in seven-hundred-fifty dollar gowns or Ryan O'Neal's bonding with son Redmond over a little methamphetamine, I think we need to know all the facts before rushing to judgment about Ms. Krentcil and her intentions.

After all, six is the new fourteen.