Children are losing every right to privacy, their personal lives made transparent, every move tracked. What happened to boundaries?

The question is prompted by the grotesque TLC reality show, "Jon & Kate Plus 8," the parents now embroiled in a fevered tabloid feud. Ick and more ick.

Even bubble-headed NBC Today hostess Kathy Lee Gifford talked reason, telling the New York Daily News: "I would turn off the cameras if I were them and just work on healing together as a family," amid rumors that the stars are close to calling it quits.

Contrast Jon and Kate Gosselin and their brood with President Barack and Michelle Obama who sparingly share daughters Sasha and Malia with the rest of us.

Dr. Michael Brody of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, is quoted by US Weekly saying the TV children are being "exposed and exploited" while the Obamas display restraint. "They are sensible parents," Brody said. The Obamas tightened the reins after they permitted their daughters last July to appear on "Access Hollywood," a TV special which garnered tremendous attention.

"And, you know, in retrospect," the president later said, clearly kicking himself, "I think we wouldn't do it again."

The issue of boundaries is not confined to the famous. Every-day folks now shamelessly blurt to vast audiences the struggles of the middle-school boy being bullied, the kindergartner with ADHD, the toddler with a rare cancer. The subjects are too young or too naïve to give informed consent or foresee consequences. Don't they have rights?

Technology, remember, will make it possible to track the course of these lives as the afflicted move into adulthood, this TV-Special archive strapped to their profiles.

Add in parents who audit, scan and tech-frisk behaviors by remote, and from birth to emancipation children are under unprecedented overt and covert scrutiny.

Global positioning systems, GPS, are pitched to parents as a way to monitor from a distance the location of the teen-driven vehicle, the speed of travel and the duration of time it's parked at in any one place. (Why not just go along for the ride?) ABC News reports that we may soon be able to read our children's text messages. It is being billed, writes Nic MacBean, as another parental tool, but civil libertarians say if you need to pry into your kids' phones then you are not doing a good job as a parent.

Is that accusation on the mark? Or is life so fraught with danger that parents really are forced into behaving like cops instead of kin?

Who decides? The answers are up for grabs. A Hollywood lawyer, for instance, has petitioned for a court-appointed guardian to represent OctoMom Nadya Suleman's children in remuneration for their celebrity. thrust upon them before they could even blink open their eyes. (As long as they live they will be hounded on anniversaries by the press.)

How far should parents go in parading or patrolling children, whose lives might be vastly improved by less exploitation and less hovering, more communication, respect and trust?

"Dr. Phil" McGraw, Oprah Winfrey's protege and TV's favorite shrink, says: If you know your child is in harm's way, you can't ignore it, no matter how you came up with the information. Absolutely. But how do you collect that information? Once upon a time, peeping into a girl's pink diary was considered unjust. Parents engaged kids in straight talk and expectations, instead of snooping.

Some may argue that times have changed and with those changing times, comes the need for far greater intrusion. Others will say that a strong bond between parent and child from Day One will result in fairly wise behavior on both sides of the fence.

It's tough to reconcile competing directives:

"Watch out for strangers; smile for the Web cam."

"I trust you; you're under 24/7 surveillance."

Kids will, sooner or later, have trouble swallowing the mixed messages.

BETSY SHEA-TAYLOR, former editor and writer for The Sun Chronicle, is a freelance writer. She can be reached at prosewing@aol.com.