I am almost embarrassed to admit this, but tonight I was watching the show Wife Swap with my older children. The premise of the show, for those of you who haven’t seen or heard about it, is that they take two wives/mothers and have them swap families for 2 weeks. Of course because it is television they take volatile people who are complete polar opposites and put them together.
Tonight’s show featured a really strict, chore loving family and a messy, dirty family wherein no one did any housekeeping.
My children were fascinated by the show.
(They were also fascinated at how rude and what poor language the people hurled at each other. Egads, it was bad. I’ll admit here and now that I find the occasional use of a good swear word to be called for, but never, ever directed at someone personally. And certainly not a whole string of them in front of my children while being filmed for national television! But I digress.)
When the show first started I had asked them which family they thought we were more like. My older two children immediately said “The chore family! We have to do chores!” But as we watched the show they slowly changed their minds. They decided that we were a combination of both families. We did chores, but still had fun.
When the new wife at the clean family decided that there would be no more cleaning, my kids were incredulous. “But why not just clean up after yourself? It doesn’t take that long!”
When the new wife encouraged them to just leave their messes laying around and not clean up their dishes after eating, again my kids said, “But why? That is just gross!”
I was incredulous, who were these kids and where were my children?
But the funniest part happened at the very end. The messy father asked the clean father if he felt bad making his kids scrub sinks. My kids were laughing. And my oldest son said, “Gee, he is making it seem like cleaning the bathroom is child abuse!”
I laughed with them. I guess being “forced” to do chores hasn’t scarred them in any way. Or at least not in any negative way.
Funny! Glad to hear your children don’t feel abused!
Funnier: “Wipe Swap”
Comment by mel — January 10, 2008 @ 9:41 am
You had me all confused with Wipe Swap.
I think all those people are actors and none of it is real. Are there really people who live like that?
Comment by Wendy — January 10, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
That is so funny I wrote Wipe Swap. I am going to go fix it now and none of the comments will make sense
Comment by Chris — January 10, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
Yes, the people are real not actors. One episode was filmed locally and I’ve met the family. Some people in life are just *nuts*
Comment by Marlene — February 20, 2008 @ 11:39 am
Hmmm……I wish my kids would respond like that. However, I have a horrible time getting them to do chores…..that is until we found this site.
They love those little cats that they can dress and talk to other kids with. However we still haven’t figured what the stamps are for yet.
This is only our second week using this site, so I’m hoping that they won’t get bored with it.
All 3 of my children have some special needs…..the girls process things very slowly and my oldest has a nasty attitude and can be very mean. My son is autistic, ADHD, and mild MR……..even he enjoys visiting Handi-Land. He just needs some help to interact with the other kids.
Comment by Cindy — March 23, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
I like it when my kids watch Supernanny and tell me, “See, we could be that naughty!” I guess I don’t have it too bad?
Comment by Jenny — May 12, 2008 @ 11:57 am
My daughters like to watch these shows with the babysitter. The babysitter knew that my 11 year old daughter was giving me a hard time about cleaning up after herself and I guess it was her way of showing my daughter that it just makes sense to clean because it’s simply nasty to allow nastiness to take over.
Have we arrived? No. We’re getting there.
Comment by Monica — May 23, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
I have watched the shw and it is SOOO funny and sometimes I feel sorry for the kids AND the parents
Comment by Kaitlin — June 2, 2008 @ 4:27 pm
I don’t remember if it was that show or the other one but anyways, they had a very strict mom versus one that wasn’t. As we were watching the show my 10 year said out of the blue “I’m glad your strict”. Let me tell you that really take me by surprise because she is always complaining on how strict I am. I don’t know if that was a good thing or bad thing but I gave me great, happy feeling on the inside. I felt like she was starting to get it, But then about three seconds later she yelled at her sister, great there went that happy, great feeling. Back to being the strict Mom!
Comment by Mandie — July 7, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
lol I love supernanny too. It makes my kids look like angels.I watch wife swap sometimes too. I like when both learn something. People are weird though when they act like following anothers rules a week is going to ruin their lives.Didn’t they sign up?
Comment by Kristin — October 26, 2008 @ 11:57 pm
I must admit, I cant seem to take wife swap. The idea of putting those kids through 2 weeks of upheaval would be so detrimental to my family. However, i do watch super nanny and Nanny 911. My kids have seen it and I have asked them how they would like to live in a house like that. they thought it would be great to have no rules, until they saw that the kids never went out to eat, the playground, or in some cases didn’t go to school. they had no sports or activities because they couldn’t handle them. My kids now think it cool to be good, and doing things around the house is “ok, as long as we can have fun too.” This weeks prize after housecleaning – the corn maze at night!
Comment by Claire — October 28, 2008 @ 11:41 am
well im a kid and i love to wactch wife swap i even watch then make me chores live help with dinner
Comment by dannielle — June 25, 2009 @ 2:10 pm