Thursday, April 24, 2008

Why would anybody sign up for Wife Swap?

I watched Wife Swap last night, against my better judgment. They just keep picking weirder and weirder families to pit one against another. Last night's was a very conservative Ohio family, the Stockdales, with a bunch of lovely boys, all homeschooled, with a very structured lifestyle with chores, learning and country music and not a whole lot else (no cable TV, no video game console, no dating in the current sense of the word), versus a suburban Chicago family, the Tonkovics, with two beautiful but aimless 20-something children and their live-ins, none of whom have jobs or are in school, with a very unstructured lifestyle. Of course it was a disaster all around.

Why on earth would a family be willing to subject themselves to this? I felt bad for both families. Philosophically I lean more toward the viewpoints of the Ohio family (minus the killing chickens for dinner and homeschooling and no video games) than the Chicago family, but still, it was brutal all around.

Seriously, would you be willing to risk your family's wellbeing for money? Even a lot of money? I don't know how much the show pays, but I can't think of any amount of money that would be enough for me to put my children and my husband in the hands of any other woman, much less the most opposite woman the network can find for them.

1 comment:

togetherforgood said...

I have never, ever understood that show. I know the kind of mother they would put in my house and can I just say I really, REALLY don't think so.