Legitimised Swinging
 Oct 23rd, 2003
(Jul 28th, 2004)
Advantages:
Great TV
Disadvantages:
Terrible effect on the children
Recommendable:
No
  orlando
About me:
Hooray for weekends! Two new poems added below.
Member since:19.05.2002
Reviews:139
Members who trust:170
Review rated by 94 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
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Update June/July 2004
This season's series of WifeSwap is slightly different from the previous series in the way that they have picked the families involved. The have picked women who are all (in my humble opinion) hard working, and who care about their children. They just have very different approaches to their mothering and wifering roles.
I haven't found the effect on the children of this series quite as harrowing as in the previous ones, but it is still very hard on all of them. I take my hat off to the children in the way that they cope. I have noticed though, that there have been 'only' children in some of the families, and that, instead of these lone children having MORE attention from the parents, it has been working the other way, and they seem to receive LESS attention from the children with siblings. What a missed opportunity for these parents, there is so much that you can do when you have just the one child rather than a gaggle of kids of different ages.
ALL June/July 04 UPDATES AT THE END Original review:
Tuesday nights have recently taken on a new theme. I go to college straight from work, but I have to dash home immediately afterwards. Why is this? Is it to make sure that my children are safe and that the house has not burned down? No, it is so I can watch Wife Swap on C4 at 9pm!! Wife Swap is probably coming to the end of its present run having been on for a few weeks now, but I expect it will be repeated on another channel soon. This show is complete Voyeurism and you can’t help but watch it, regardless of whether you are avidly viewing or doing something else while it is on but just ‘happen’ to see the odd bit.
The idea is that the TV production team consider two families, who are very different from each other, and swap the wives over. It is reality TV at (nearly) its worse, but it makes for compulsive viewing and is talked about on a Wednesday morning all over the country, from top professionals to youngsters at school (well, I haven’t got evidence to support that claim, but you get the gist!). So far, we have seen some horrors. We have had fish-wife women swapping with demure creatures; complete slobs swapping with the most awful control freaks; selfless swapping with the selfish. The nation passes judgement on who is the better wife and mother (we shall move onto ‘mother’ later on). We say to each other “Can you believe how she/he spoke to her/him??” “Can you believe how messy/sparse their home was” and “How can anyone live with him/her” – oh yes, we are all making judgements on someone else’s lifestyle – but if it came to it, how would we fare in a programme that is on for fifty minutes but which has been edited from ten days worth of film? I know that I would be held up as a terrible example and Social Services would not be far from my door, even though I work for them!
I am not in sympathy with the adult participants in this programme for any longer than it takes for the titles to finish rolling. I believe that the loving couples get what they deserve for wanting their fifteen minutes of fame. My concern is for the children. I sit at times, cringing about how the
children are reacting and what must be going through their heads. It probably seems a bit harsh to call it child abuse, but, as parents, we are supposed to protect our young charges until they are old enough to do the job themselves.
How did these parents sell the idea of joining the cast of Wife Swap to their children, I wonder. Was it the promise of a chance in a lifetime trip to Disneyworld from the proceeds, if they took part? My youngest daughter of fourteen watches the show with me each week and she comments on how embarrassing it must be for the teenagers being shown having arguments and crying etc on telly, when they have to go back to school the next day and face their class, and the rest of their school. I agree, I think it must be hell for some of them unless they are extremely self assured and can take the flack with the support of their friends. There are families with tiny children too. How do the little ones make sense of what is happening in their homes, and surely it must have some kind of effect on their security, even if only for a short while. My going into hospital on a few occasions, through illness or childbirth, has had an effect on the little ones I have left at home, and they have become some of the clearest memories of my older offspring from when they were small. You just can’t tell. Wife Swap should be just that, the couples swap partners, and leave the children out of it - maybe the kids could have an all expenses paid holiday while the swap takes place.
Going back to the adults, I wonder if this swap has had an effect on the relationship between the partners. It always seems fairly cosy when they get back together, but I wonder…… A couple of weeks back, a vegan woman who had had a major life-threatening condition but had recovered, was controlling the health and diet of her family. The family didn’t seem to want to follow her vegan diet and were happy to eat animals and animal products while wifey was away! I can understand the mother and her reasoning for this new lifestyle; like the surrogate mum though, I couldn’t quite understand how this ‘protective’ mum was allowing her ten year old to hang around on the street corners of a notoriously dodgy part of South East London. Just didn’t tally.
My favourite episode though, was the blonde woman who swapped with the dreadful mother of almost a dozen kids (ok, exaggeration!). Dreadful woman’s husband was a horrible, nasty bit of work and got pleasure from seeing the blond woman cry. The dreadful wife also got pleasure for hearing this – yuk! However, dreadful wife suddenly got an attack of the green eyed monster when she found out about the other woman’s personal history and she called a halt to the proceedings. It was spectacular, with swearing and lots of fag-ash – it really made the best viewing! The couples meet in a pub or restaurant after the ten days are up. During the previous ten days, the first five were with the surrogate taking on the complete role of the real wife ie doing her job, running the home as the real wife does. The next five days, the surrogate puts her own way of working into place and demands that the family behave in the way that her own family do. This is usually where the sparks start to fly as the surrogate has got to know the family, is more confident, and can get her own back for the previous 5 days.
I would love to see in a year or so if these married couples are still together, maybe a documentary – ‘After the Swap – twelve months on’. Wife Swap, hm, why don’t they just come out with it and say they are bored with each other and want a bit of extra curricular but with the bonafide back-up of it being a ‘documentary’! Or are they really so arrogant as to think that they are the perfect family and the whole nation ‘needs’ to be shown just how god-damn perfect they are. We all make life choices and we work with partners and make compromises to make our relationships work. None of us are robots, so obviously what works well for one couple is unlikely to work well for another couple, as is blatantly obvious from watching Wife Swap. Anyone who has been married more than once will know that what worked/failed in one marriage will have a completely different effect in any subsequent marriage (or with couples who live together, obviously).
Thankfully, for my own children and the population as a whole, I am no longer married so I will not be able to put my lot through this torture. Mind you, I could show these ‘happy couples’ a thing or two! Now, where is that Wedding Brochure ….. ooh, C4 are looking for newly marrieds, must get onto them………
Update continued.....
1.7.04 saw a prison offcer swap places with a young mother who had never worked. The prison officer was married to her boss, a more senior screw, and they ran their home like the prison for fear that their two children would turn into criminals. Seeing the children, this would be the most unlikely outcome. In a way, the strictness that they were enduring during their young lives was enough to make them rebel in their teens and how ironic would that be?! The other woman appeared to have become pregnant as a teenager, and so had never had the opportunity to work. Her husband was out at work all day, and then out most of the evening, leaving her to bring up the four children alone for the most part. She was a very laid back mother and swore a lot.
My view was that the four children suffered the most. The prison officer was God fearing and insisted on prayers and brimstone and fire if she was disobeyed. The most cringeingly embarrassing part for me was the 'nit search' on national TV - how embarrassing for those children today! Also, reducing the children to tears in her witch hunt over a puzzle going in the bin. The plaintive look on the little boy's face at being put on a 'naughty chair' made you want to hug him. The other children were slightly older, and lovely too. Very well behaved and completely overwelmed by this woman who behaved in a more childlike manner than they, themselves. Young mum threw a party, with lots of sweets and a bouncy castle and invited as many kids as she could find, plus parents. Interestingly, the aunt was also invited and made to feel uncomfortable by the strict rules on bedtime - 8.30 on a Friday, so strictly enforced that father sat in the bedroom insisting on his kids staying in their bed despite the party continuing in the garden till 10.30.
Ok - 6.7.04 - a rich woman in a very secure marriage, and even more secure home (think prison) swapped with a woman who wasn't even a wife and never had been (sorry, may I remind the programme makers this was WIFE swap??) Well, Mrs Rich from Cornwall (minus the Corn accent - don't believe she was Cornish at all) swapped with an East London woman. Rich woman tried to do the Lady Bountiful bit and was extraordinarily insulting to the whole of London. To give her her due, she did throw herself into doing the youth work that her swap was involved in.
The London woman tried to motivate the husband into working in the community - he went a way, but suddenly put a stop to the idea of a large party for 'underpriviledged kids' in the local community. How blooming patronising. The way the rich children were talking about the 'underprivileged' children in the local town just made me want to cry Child Abuse from the fact that they had been so sheltered from life generally, they were the underprivileged children. On realising that the home was running ok'ish without all the housework, the husband quickly pulled in the reins before the wife came back home (- fear of her realising that she could actually gain something from the experience in London?), and so he blamed her 'addiction' to housework for why she didn't work but spent 5 hours per day on housework. Not at all, it was sheer control and she felt she had to keep up the hard work. That was clear as day by the way the husband berated the swap for her apparent lack of housewifery skill.
The best bit of sense came from single mum of 19 (London Daughter) when she said that her mum HAD done a good job, but children don't always follow through good teaching into adulthood and you can;t control that when a young man is now twenty, and you certainly can't compare the upbringing to a young lad of 14 who is still very influenced by his parents. (my words, but that is what she was saying).
Grrr - wait for the next installment! Well, last week, 13.7.04. Two women of opposite political viewpoints were swapped. One, a financially comfortable surburban mother of one daughter, the other, an environmentalist who had two small children and lived in a log cabin.
Suburban mrs found the green lifestyle hard to take as she liked clinical cleanliness; the greeny found the clinical cleanliness to sterile. There was also a bit of a blowup between both of them and the husbands. Mrs suburb found the fact that husband 'Larch' worked for one day in a University (preaching green issues) and spending the rest of the week claiming benefits unfair. He was supposed to be living a 'self sufficient' lifestyle, but really it was based on other's enforced tax deductions from their wages which was supporting him and his family to live the way many others would probably love to have a go at, but can't due to lack of funds and morals?
Mrs greeny found the attitude within the suburban home very negative and aggressive. She also hated the amount of chemicals required to keep the home clean. This was a very productive week. Both families learnt from the others, and made some changes to their lifestyles. Mr Suburb learnt that his daughter actually 'craved' more attention and this was why her behaviour was so poor.( I can't remember what the Greeny's learnt but I will come back to that and update!!)
I was asked by another Ciao member what my view was of the way Larch claimed benefits to maintain his green lifestyle. My personal feeling, based on the fact that I work with many people living on very limited benefit amounts due to the extent of how many benefits are being claimed in comparison to how many people are paying into the exchequers 'pot', I feel that both of these parents could have worked part time or job shared to enable the children to always have a parent at home with them. They didn't need to have both, all the time. The argument from the suburban mrs about her 'having' to work to pay the tax for them to claim, was a bit unfounded. She clearly had a very good lifestyle, and I would imagine this was more based on her husband's job than her parttime office job. This may be unfair of me to say that, and slightly sexist?
I would have LOVED to swap and spend a week in the log cabin with the organic veg etc. You wouldn't have found me mowing a lawn though, I would have dug that up straight away and planted some root veg for the winter! 20.7.04 - Very noisy, sociable family swapped with very cerebral, quiet family. Well, what can I say. Both families were dysfunctional. Posh lot needed to get some fresh air in their lungs and learn to socialise (how painfully embarrassing to watch the step dad standing by the swings while the teenage girl was chatting to her friend). The other family needed to spend more time together and get a little RESPECT for each other.
Fifteen year old girls need guidance from parents on how to deal with the transition from childhood to adulthood. But, it has to be subliminal so they don't notice it!!
Fourteen year old gilrs need to be allowed to experiment with makeup and clothes and learn to make mistakes and correct them, not be smothered by parents; I would love to see an update in ten years time with the children revisited as wives and husbands, to see if there was any effect on their own spousing!
Orlando 2004
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by (1%):
by (5%):
08.03.2005 20:22
i love wife swap but only when they have fights is it still on ?
11.01.2005 16:21
Love wife swap! But did you see the one where the parents slept all day and the toddlers were downstairs playing with the half full lager cans and fag butts? It was awful! I can't believe swapped wife or the camera crew didn't say enough was enough and put the kids first. Nice op, Ruth.
31.12.2004 03:36
Can't get enough of WifeSwap. Staple tv viewing! Ellie x