Ranting

I understand America’s lust for reality shows. We are all voyeurs and since crawling around in the bushes spying on people stops being cute after you turn seven and starts being decidedly creepy, we count on our TV producers to keep our knees clean. But here’s what I don’t get: why these people sign up. Especially for this new “Trading Spouses” gig. I have only ever caught snippets of this drivel and it seems it’s vitally important to the shows success that the families involved be radically different. As a mom, this offends me to no end. Do these mothers really have such disrespect for their children that they think it’s OK to allow another mother – a mother who must be so different in parenting styles that everything she believe in would be tossed out the window – to take over their children for a week (is it a week?) and thrust upon their fragile minds a whole ‘nother way of being? These are your CHILDREN, people! Your husband can handle it, or at least if he’s not a big ol’ baby he can. But your kids? How dare you thrust your children into the arms of a mother who has been selected for how different her beliefs are from your own. Not a fan of time-outs? You better bet your ass your kids are going to be sitting in them all week. Working hard at learning to communicate with your children instead of yelling at them? Guess this week there will be yelling at your house. I just can’t imagine some woman in here treating my children in the exact opposite of what I think best. I couldn’t allow it. How can these other mothers? Is their need to be on TV so great that they would compromise everything they believe in? Do they not believe in their way of parenting? Do they not care?

I guess the bigger question is: why do I care?