This Kid’s Got Talent. HIS talent.

Ethan Bortnick is an amazingly talented piano player. At eleven years old, he has played a worldwide concert tour, been on Oprah, and starred in a movie that will be released next year (oh yeah - he wrote all the music for that, too). He holds the Guinness World Record for youngest solo musician to headline a tour, an achievement that - his website boasts - beats out Michael Jackson, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder.

So why am I not excited for this kid?

I’m not excited because behind all of his charm and stupefying skill I’m pretty sure there’s a machine, and the machine is run by a monster called profit. I mean, it’s possible that all of this was his idea. It’s possible that after he started composing music at age 5, he began to dream of opportunities for worldwide exposure and the advancement of his career. It’s possible that he woke up one day and said, “You know what? I need a website. And a publicist. And Twitter.” That’s all possible. But I doubt it.

What’s more likely is that there’s an army of adults behind this seeing dollar signs. Which is not to denigrate his ability. He’s a phenom – watch 30 seconds of him on YouTube and you’ll know that. He’s a phenom; but must he be a superstar? That’s the question that nags at me anytime I see an ultra-talented kid thrust into the limelight.

It even occurs to me from time to time when I encounter a moderately talented kid who locks onto a specialized interest at a young age. I get the benefits. It gives them a goal to achieve, it teaches them self-discipline and the value of practice, it “keeps them out of trouble” (as if idle, unstructured time in a kid’s life necessarily equates with “trouble”). It furnishes an identity and a ready friendship group to relate to. I get that. But I wonder, what’s the cost?

In Ethan’s case, his publicity machine – ahem, team – seems bent on convincing us that he’s “just a normal kid”, who “plays videogames until they call his name and he runs on stage”, who loves his parents and school and his friends, etc. etc. Yep, pretty normal – except for the part about appearing on Good Morning America and recording albums and writing film scores and meeting Elton John. Where is this headed? Lindsay Lohan was a pretty cute kid, too. So was Gary Coleman. And the Brady Bunch kids, many of whom battled drugs and alcohol and depression through their adult years. Show business is notoriously hard on child stars. (Macauley Culkin, anyone? Miley Cyrus? Cory Haim? The list goes on.) Which could be why Bortnick’s public persona stresses his “everyday kid” side (apart from the Guinness World Record thing, of course). I have a feeling the adults behind him want to assure us that he’s above corruption. No doubt they want to believe it themselves, as anyone whose train is hitched to this star stands to make out big.

I’m not predicting that early stardom will hinder his growth into healthy adulthood, and I’m not wishing for that. But is that even the point? Isn’t the bigger issue this matter of him achieving super-stardom on levels that are absolutely inaccessible to 11-year-olds? I mean, the kid’s got talent. And he can play Vegas and with Beyonce and on Oprah…but should he? When does kid-sized exuberance  cross over into adult-sized ambition, reaching the point where it’s ripe for exploitation and no longer about him?

Because the kid’s got talent; but it’s his talent. And with that comes the right to say no, something that’s very hard to do when sponsors and venues and promoters and fans are depending on you for output. Even if Team Bortnick is somehow able to keep him above the pressure and away from the business end of things, the fact remains that him producing and continuing to produce is the key to the whole enterprise. And that’s a little scary.

Just yesterday on ESPN, Sportscenter was showing clips of a nine-year-old girl who is dominating her (mostly all-boy) tackle football league in Utah. But...why? What is it in us that holds almost morbid fascination for extraordinary ability in kids? If this is an instinct (because “dog bites man” isn’t news, but “man bites dog” is), fine. But why must we publicize it? Because before we know it, USC will be recruiting her and we’ll all be locked into a decade-long reality TV-fest of “Sam’s Road to the Heisman”. Unbelievable.

Individual agency – the ability to exercise self-direction and be acknowledged as an autonomous being – presupposes choices. If kids aren’t able to say no, either because they aren’t given permission to, or because no is actually impossible, then we as adults aren't respecting them and we aren't taking them seriously. They’re not living lives so much as they are living out scripts dictated to them by grownups.

What if Ethan said no? Unlikely as it is, what if tomorrow he decided all the concerts, all the fundraising, all the recording were over, and he was done? Could he just go outside and play? No doubt some people would answer, “But kids need to be taught to keep commitments – that’s part of being a responsible grown up.” Yes, they need to keep their commitments – the ones they make and choose. Force your kid to play out the football season? You bet – assuming they knew what they were getting into at the start and freely chose it. Make them persevere through music lessons or other challenging skill-based activities? Up to a certain level of proficiency, sure.

But kids need exposure to lots of different activities. They need to try lots of things, some of which they’ll excel at and others of which they won’t. And since time is limited, that means they need to have the freedom to stop doing some things in order to take up other things. Because it’s not likely that, like Ethan Bortnick, they’ll sit down at the piano at age 3 and play Mozart by ear, launching them on a fast track to fame. Come to think of it, thank God for that.