Parents, don’t let your babies grow up to be politicians.

It sounds like just an awful life.

I don’t live in a bubble, and my profession forces me to be far more cynical than my nature, so it’s not like I was unaware of the lying and deceit, but I still believed deep down in my soul there was some nobility in holding public office, in being a member of Congress and trying to make a difference.

We learned this week about adult political operatives recruiting and paying teenagers to be “political trackers.”

We learned that filming candidates has become not only commonplace, but increasingly nefarious.

We learned from Rep. Elise Stefanik that she has been followed and filmed at private fundraisers, outside her home, walking in and out of the Capitol and en route to committee meetings in Washington.

It sounds terrible.

I know I wouldn’t want to be photographed as I dumped my garbage at the transfer station Saturday morning or at the supermarket before I had a chance to shave.

The noble argument for this invasion of privacy is that political parties videotape political candidates so they can catch unscrupulous politicians making promises that contradict what they really believe.

The argument goes that a congressional candidate might make one set of promises in one part of the district, but a totally different set of promises in another.

The more cynical view is that this is “gotcha” politics at its worst, with political operatives not only trying to catch a candidate in a bad moment, but maybe even provoking or entrapping them.

It’s all ugly, as far as I’m concerned.

I had all but forgotten how congressional candidate Matt Doheny was photographed and filmed “canoodling” in a D.C. restaurant with a woman who was not his fiancee during the 2012 campaign against Rep. Bill Owens.

I found a 2016 article in the National Review on “tracking” that explained political candidates are now taught to be more disciplined, to stay on message all the time while watching their body language.

No eye rolls.

No off-the-cuff remarks.

You know, the stuff that made them real and human, and sometimes gave us insight into who they are and what they believe.

I guess what we all need to remember is that political power is all about money, not ideas or solutions anymore.

Whoever is in control decides who gets the tax breaks, which regulations are eliminated to help which businesses and who gets funding from the government.

There is a lot of money at stake, with the federal government spending somewhere north of $4 trillion and the state spending in excess of $157 billion.

That has made the politics ruthless, the attack ads unconscionable and our ability to evaluate the character and beliefs of the candidates impossible because they are so self-conscious about being caught off-guard by a secret camera.

Our entire leadership is paranoid, as congressional races become the new reality shows as they try to avoid derailing their careers over one filmed moment.

Because of that, our candidates have become robots.

And we increasingly don’t know what to believe.