Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing on ABC-TV December 1st

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Nov 18, 2004, at 12:36 AM, Zev Paiss wrote:

> As promised, I wanted to let you all know that our family's episode of 
> Wife
> Swap will be on the air on Wednesday, December 1, at 9:00 pm (Mountain 
> Time)
> on ABC.  We have spoken to a number of people at both RDF Media (the
> production company) and ABC-TV and have heard from everyone that it is 
> a
> very positive and funny show.

I totally accidently hit on a reality show on Fox 5  Monday night at 
8:00. Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy. A conservative mom from 
Tennessee is placed in a mansion in California with a workaholic man 
who never speaks to his kids, who totally are out of control. The 
California mother is placed in the Tennessee home with kids that are so 
well-behaved they make breakfast in the morning are off to school at 
6:50 am without a reminder. The contrast between these two women, their 
values, and how they behave as parents is incredible. It is not to be 
missed.  The woman from Tennessee was doing family counseling with the 
husband in California -- forget your million dollars, you are unhappy. 
You need to put your foot down with these kids and eat meals together. 
The man in Tennessee wants the California woman to go hunting with him 
so she can enjoy being one with nature and she is freaked at the sound 
of gun shots. The Tennessee mom starts cooking dinner in the early 
afternoon and serves home-cooked chicken and dumplings. No one who 
comes to the house has ever seen this done before.

I haven't watched the ABC version but these programs are really very 
interesting -- what happens when a Jewish progressive mom is put in an 
Evangelical Christian home and ends up in Bible study. And the 
conservative Christian mom tries to convince the Jewish husband to 
teach his children about chastity pledges and then returns to find all 
her artificial flowers replace with real ones!

The commercials are awful but the situations are very well handled and 
very emotional. They go for "how do these people feel about each 
other?"

I look forward to seeing the cohousing version.

Sharon
-----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org