Our youngest, who I first wrote about in My Husband The Hemorrhoid, isn't a big TV watcher. He has a few inexplicable favorites, like Charmed and The Golden Girls which he prefers to watch on DVD over and over again, but he has always found commercials and infomercials (current favorite is the Magic Bullet) more interesting.
He's also big on "following the rules". Whenever he's in a new situation--a new class, a new game, a new activity, he's uncomfortable until the rules are spelled out in black and white--to help him understand what is expected of him.
So when the "nanny shows"---Super Nanny and Nanny 911---came out, he was in hog heaven. Shows where nannies set codes of conduct and restore order in chaotic homes. Nannies make angels out of bad boys and girls. Oh Bliss!
Hubby and I aren't fond of reality shows. Watching people in real life humiliating themselves and/or the people they love isn't entertainment for us. It's torture.
But since little guy found a couple of shows that he wants us to watch together as family, we've decided to grin and bear it.
I just gotta say it...
Holy shit!
Where do they find these people?
Last night on Nanny 911, Nanny Stella was treated to a family of 5, with a 6-year-old who bit her, pinched her and spat in her face (and tells his bus driver to "eff-off").
Meanwhile, slovenly Mommy--who has her ample spandexed ass permanently welded to the couch while she shovels pizza into her maw and ignores her kids--tells the camera how much she resents Nanny coming in and critiquing her parenting skills.
What parenting skills? And how much is the show paying you to display what a grotesque pig of a person you are to a national audience? While you're at it, take a shower for Chrissakes!
On one hand it's easy to feel superior when watching these shows.
On the other, it's appalling to witness some of the parenting faux-pas I have made over the years being re-enacted on the screen. I find myself sneaking looks at my family wondering if they too have recognized some of my early blunders.
Looks like I'm going to have to be on my toes from now on!
3 comments:
It's insanity!
My mother once said that as adults we spend our entire lives trying to undo the crap our parents screw us up with. It's only in the past few years that I've finally realised just how right she was. Of course it now makes me paranoid about how much I'm screwing my own kids up.
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