Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Secret Life: What's the Tradeoff?

While Middle Sister and I hung around earlier, watching some What Not to Wear, discussing my current haircut, and hoping she spends the day without a fever, we saw a commercial for a new show that will premiere on TLC in March: The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom.

I didn't understand the whole "secret" thing until I looked a little further. Apparently these moms all have school-age children or they'd never be able to hide the week they spend "moonlighting" during the school day.

I'm not sure how they manage to hide it anyway, unless a secret housekeeper also comes to their home to pick up the slack on laundry, errands, cleaning and meal preparation. I taught part-time for a while before Little Brother was born, and had to figure out how to fit those things into a day that also included 5 hours of employment.

It's disturbing to me that these "soccer moms" are expected to pretend to their families that they are just following their usual daily routines. What happens if one of their children is sick and needs to stay home from school? Wouldn't the whole truth come out at that point?

I feel that shows based on deception right from the beginning are sure to cause harm to these families--not just to the children, but to the parent-child relationship as well as the relationship between the spouses.

Will I watch? I don't know. I am curious to see how the "mom-at-home" life is portrayed. My guess is that it will be depicted as an occupation or obligation, rather than a vocation. If that's so, then that's the whole problem with the show in a nutshell. And if that's so, I definitely don't want my kids watching.

Families deserve better.

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