Baby, please don't turn yourself into an American Idol.

I'M standing at the window of the hospital nursery gazing at you, nine pounds and four ounces of snoozing pink innocence and boundless possibility.

Naturally, it's my hope that you grow up to be happy, caring, generous, productive, principled and unselfish. Your parents will have much to say about that, and there's no doubt they'll steer you wisely through childhood. Like most mothers and fathers, they're reluctant to risk dampening their children's aspirations by heaping too much grim reality upon them too soon.

However, being a grandfather invests me with a cranky candor that you may have to indulge from time to time. We might as well begin now.

The world into which you have so hungrily arrived is a complicated, troubled and sometimes heartbreaking place. You were fortunate to have been born in the richest and most tolerant country, though it's far from perfect.

The choices you make ought to be yours alone, but it would be baloney for me to say that I'll be bursting with pride no matter what you do.

Example: While flipping TV channels the other night, I came upon a program called "Fear Factor." Believe it or not, the show features young men and women swallowing live worms and repulsive parts of dead animals--the ultimate goal being to get famous and win a wad of cash.

Surely the parents (and grandparents) of "Fear Factor" contestants never dreamed those kids would someday show up on national television with cow entrails dangling from their expensively straightened teeth, but there you have it.

That's what I mean about choices. When I was growing up, it wasn't nearly so easy to make an ass out of one's self in front of millions of people. Today, almost anybody can do it. It's practically an industry.

For what's it's worth, it would be just fine with me if your ambitions led you in other directions. I could coast happily into old age knowing that you never groveled in Donald Trump's boardroom, or chose your fiancee from a gaggle of strangers on the lawn of a French castle.

A few weeks ago, something called a tidal wave smashed into the coasts of Asia and Africa, killing more than 160,000 persons. It was a horror that you have no reason to contemplate at your tender age.

But here's what happened afterward. Millions and millions of people around the world sent whatever money they could afford to help the survivors of that tragedy. And thousands more--nurses, doctors, rescue workers, volunteers--hopped on planes to lend a hand.

I couldn't tell you the names of these people because they didn't do it in order to become celebrities or win a prize. They did it because they were needed, and because it was decent and humane and right.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you can't gobble live worms on TV and still be a good person. I'm just asking you not to be fooled into believing that sort of thing is remotely important, no matter how much attention it gets.

It seems silly to be laying this on you now, when your only worldly concern is scoring a dry diaper and some warm milk. I'm not too worried. After all, your dad turned out just fine. And if he ate any worms, he was smart enough not to broadcast it.

Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for the Miami Herald.