Wife swap/ stupid show, surprisingly deep thoughts

I admit it, I watch that show on occasion. They usually take two women who are complete polar opposites and switch them, with fireworks and tears insueing.

I have noticed that issues of feminism seem to recurr in the show. There was the show were the one wife worked three jobs and did littel to "pamper" herself while taking care of a herd of kids. Teh other wife was the well kept wife on a manhatan millionair. She went to the spa and the personal trainer and to tennis lessons and to dinner parties with the husband while a cook and two nannies took care of the kids.

In that senario, I side with the first wife. I would rather work myself silly then be such a spoiled consumer who ignored the kids.

Tonight's senario was a littl different. It was a conservative christian wife who was a stay at home mom versus a working mom who was a liberal christian (although it seemed like the liber family did more making fun of prayer then actual praying).

The conservative wanted the children to have "servants hearts" and to wait to date until they wanted a spouce.

The liberal christian/feminist family wanted to "give the kids choices" and to let them direct theor own future.

I have been questioning my own views on all this lately. I don't really define myself as a feminist (many things that self proclaimed feminists get up in arms about, really just don't bug me that much). But I am not a traditionalist either.

I think that girls and women should be able to pursue what ever path they want. If that means high power corporate ambition or law or medicine or whatever, then that is okay. But I also think that once you are a parent, your responsibilities should change. Teh focus needs to be on what is safer and more secure for the kids. I'm not saying mother's shouldn't work, just that I don't know, there has to be room for the kids.

I also think that if a woman wants to be a stay at home mother, that shoudl be okay too. That doesn't make her stupid or brainwashed. I think that every married couple works out the dynamic of who does what and that what works for one doesn't have to work for another.

Which is why I really don't understand the people who go on wife swap. If the family they have is working and the family they go to is working, then why do they always feel the need to impse their own veiws on another family. (IT makes for entertaining TV).

Which gets me back to the ep tonight. The working mom was offended at teh idea of raisin girls to not date: While I don't think it is healthy to keep kids completely cut off from the outside world, the idea of not dating, not allowing oneself to get so serious about another, not being physical, until they are at least old enough and mature enough to consider marriage, doesn't sound that bad to me. I'm not saying that there should be no contact with others, but I think back to when I was 15. I thought I was feeling love, maybe I was. But if I had been brought up to have a mind set that I wasn't going to date a series of boys, that it was okay to not have a boyfriend, I think I would have made soem different choices. So, When my boys get to be teens, I'll let them have female friends. I'll let them do dances if they want, but serious "oh my gosh I'm so in love" girlfriends will be discoraged,

Teh other thing that bothered the feminist/liberal wife was teh idea of having servants heart. They tok that as wanting the little girls to be servants and slaves. I define having a servant's heart as being selfless. As being kind and willing to help others and willing to do for others. I don't think that women or men should be willing to let others walk all over them. There has to be a mutual respect, but what is wrong with raising a kid to say, okay lets get this job done, rather then groan, I hate chores?

I dunno if this made much sense.