It used to be that if you had kids, you gleaned child-rearing advice from your parents or your neighbors or your religious community. But these days, that seems pretty last century, or perhaps the century before that.
Now the place to go for information on how to be a good parent is reality television, and it has been full of advice lately. If your philosophy has not included strapping on your son's football gear and making sure he has no toys or friends, you are not doing the job properly.
Let's start with "Parents Just Don't Understand," which began last Saturday on the Hub Network. Joey Fatone, the former 'N Sync me mber, acts as host, turning up each week at a home where some child is complaining about the hard life of a hyper-busy brat.
"Please, Joey, help me," Saylor, a 12-year-old, laments in this Saturday's episode. "I need more time being a kid."
Mr. Fatone has the whiny child switch places with a parent, which, in the premiere, led to the delightful sight of a woman named Darcy suiting up and going through football practice in place of her 13-year-old son, Quintin. The show cops out a bit by not making the role-reversal complete: The tweeners do not get to drive the minivan when taking their younger siblings to appointments and such. Must've been liability issues.
Anyway, it's all fake as heck, beginning with the surprise expressed by the parents when Mr. Fatone shows up at their house, and everybody tries too hard to achieve the snappy repartee of a scripted sitcom. But probably none of that bothers the intended audience. Yes, parents, your little darling wants nothing more than for you to see the error of your overscheduling ways.
So what's a mother or father to do? The answer was offered in a recent episode of one of the more jaw-dropping reality shows of the summer, Bravo's "Extreme Guide to Parenting," on Thursday nights. Each installment looks at a family that has adopted a child-rearing philosophy well out of the mainstream. Two weeks ago, viewers met the Whitacres, Wendy an d Tyler, who have jettisoned almost all their worldly belongings, including their home, and now live in a car with their two children, ages 7 and 9.
"My kids are going to be well rounded," Tyler Whitacre explained. "They're going to care about people and nature and not so much about things."
No day crammed with soccer practice and voice lessons for these kiddos, and no den stocked like a Toys "R" Us, either.
"What are you playing with?" Mr. Whitacre asked his daughter during an idle moment, of which these children seemed to have plenty.
"A stick," she said, looking exactly as thrilled as your child would, if reduced to playing with a stick.
Among the "possessions" these young siblings are asked to do without: friends.
"They're each other's best friends because usually they have no other options," their mother explained. Indeed.
At least they'll have their memories, such as they are. "Mom," the 7-year-old moaned during a stop to take care of certain necessities, "I don't really like public bathrooms."
It would be interesting to see one particular television family, the McGhees of Columbus, Ohio, try this same life-on-the-road approach, although no ordinary car would do. They return to Oprah Winfrey's network, OWN, next Saturday for Season 3 of "Six Little McGhees," a cuteness-saturated series that follows Mia and Rozonno McGhee as they raise sextuplets.
The show has tracked the children, who are adorable, more or less since birth, in episodes with titles like "Six Little Birthdays," "It's Potty Time!" and "Abra-Ca-Dentist." Now they're toddlers and moving a lot faster than in the first two seasons, which can't be good news for their parents. Last year, in a promotional appearance on "Good Morning America," Mr. McGhee's main advice for parents of multiples was, "When they sleep, you sleep."
As for his greatest challenge, he said, "The hardest thing is to go to the bathroom and watch yourself cry in the mirror."
But another venerable show that returns next week gives hope to the McGhees and parents everywhere. The TLC series "19 Kids & Counting," about the prolific Duggar family, comes back for its zillionth season on Tuesday, and Topic A in the premiere is the marriage of one of the 19, Jill. No matter how you raise your kids or how many you have, eventually, with any luck, they'll move out.
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