Wife Swap, Lesson Swap
Wife Swap, Lesson Swap by Roxanne McDonald
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If it isn’t just posturing for television, Wife Swap participants come away with a lesson or two. |
“There’s always room for a little bit of magic,” says the traditional husband, Kyle Thompson as he works with his new/temporary pagan wife, Bella Thompson.
“[I smashed the coven’s plate] because it was only profiting the coven…,” says the seemingly reformed Wiccan husband, Kenny Thompson, to his new/temporary traditional wife, Alison Askam.
Kyle learns to treat his wife more like the high priestess Bella believes she is (and less like the slave she was); while Kenny learns to be more of a “man” for his family, coming home for dinner, taking a leadership (rather than lackey) role.And the parents usually learn to treat their kids the way they wish to be treated: little Ramsey spent a lot of time on the computer, for lack of closeness and quality time with Dad. But once Dad changes and starts doing father-son things, Ramsey confides in him that he would trade playing on the computer alone for playing with Dad…anytime.
Wife Swap ‘Aint No Modern Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice
Wife Swap ‘Aint No Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice by Roxanne McDonald
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Sometimes Wife Swap seems like a weaker version of Trading Spouses, which offers a cash stipend whereas Wife Swap does not and which features some of the nuttiest people on television. Sometimes Wife Swap seemingly leads us closer to watching full out Peyton Place small town swinging on TV. |
The premise is, of course, as the title suggests: two wives from different states or cities trade places in each other’s homes for two weeks. The first week, the implanted wife must do as the Smiths do, eating, working, scheduling as the real mom does. But in week two, the new mom gets to run the family and household as she would back home. So when one family is a Christian country-bumpkin cluster of nine with a mother who insists on home schooling, on sanitizing everything all the time, and on keeping all kids of all ages with her at all times, and the other mom is an excessive worker on the phone all the time, buying her kids sh-t instead of hugging them or taking the time to do their hair, you know the changes are going to be more than unsettling.
The real estate mom puts the kids in
school, the little ones in day care, takes the older ones shopping, and insists on not only getting jobs for the two teen girls but enforcing their first dates by driving them to the pop shop and leaving them in the company of two fellow Christians.
The stay at home earth mother who has a major germ phobia that would run circles around Seinfeld’s, for example, takes the kids OUT of school, buries the real mom’s cell phone in a paper coffin in the back yard, and insists that her mayun be pampered and cared for by his woman as God intended.
The whole religion tension thing is usually an instant uh-oh for me, as I can see neither delight nor resolution in the centuries-old argument. But earth mother isn’t a bible-thumper and cell phone mom isn’t an antagonizing agnostic or atheist. The emphasis is instead on learning to let go for one and learning to live in love and closeness rather than in Guess or Gucci and G-Men or X-Men games as a replacement for the oft-requested mother love.
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