So I was watching “Trading Spouses” last night and I came across this high-strung Vegan mom. I didn’t get to watch the whole episode, but with the way it was edited, Vegan Mom came across as a nightmare.
Some gems:
1. She forces people at a dinner party to watch a video about cruelty to animals, then the producer cuts to a scene of her shoving a dog’s face in his own pee and giving him a swat. We had seen this earlier, but the producers wanted to make the connection for us in case we were, well, blind.
2. She extols the virtue of a tofu burger: “These help prevent cancer, meat burgers cause cancer.” Cutaway to her lighting up a cigarette.
3. They show one of her kids saying he isn’t looking forward to her coming home because he’ll probably get in a lot more trouble when she does. Ouch. This could have taken place right after he says he misses her, but we'll never know.
Anyway, although I did not care for Barbara in the least, it got me thinking about how someone would “edit” me for prime time. Scary.
During my 9 years as a stay at home mom with little kids and little help, I was often glad Dateline wasn’t there to catch me hiding in the bathroom with a Diet Pepsi and Little Debbie’s or needing to put myself in Mommy Time Out. Living in a 5 level split with no bathroom on the main level made potty training F-U-N. Let’s just leave it at that and say a lot would happen on any given 12+ hour day—definite highs and lows.
Now that the kids are 8 and 10 and my husband has a fantastic work schedule, I have a lot less stress, but I can see how I could still be edited in a not so flattering way.
Take yesterday. Jake and I were enjoying a lovely Friday afternoon. He finished a puzzle as I cooked tacos. We laughed, we joked, we bonded. As soon as Tom walked in the door and started breathing my air I became a total…crab.
I plunked the tacos on the table with a gruff “Let’s Eat NOW!” Anyone who knows what happens when mom is hungry will hop to it. But there was more to it than that: I had a cold, I was bored, I couldn’t seem to get anything done, I had ordered a $5,000 shed with vinyl siding and I don't even LIKE vinyl siding, and it won’t stop raining. Somehow this was all Tom’s fault.
It wasn’t a big moment, just one of many moments, big and small, that make up a day. And I was glad when it passed.
Of course if I were to go on one of those wife swapping shows, there is the possibility that I could stay nice for the duration because I'd be with strangers. Isn’t it a sad fact that we are uber polite to those we don’t know, but we turn like caged lions on those closest to us? Or is that just me?
Anyway, I’m glad I’m not on one of those shows. I certainly don’t think it will help prove the integrity of the whacked-out family of the Balloon Boy of earlier this week. Not only were they on Wife Swap, but you have the little gem of the parents basically ignoring the kid as he pukes repeatedly on national tv.
I guess the beauty of real life versus “reality show life” is that we get a chance to get better and to start over every day, for His mercies are “New every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.” I'm glad to choose a Divine Do-Over over being preserved in cable tv glory for all the world to see.
Plus, I have a really pointy nose. And no one needs to see that.
