dad swap

kieran reports that the producers of wife swap are seeking a family of philosophers. for those unfamiliar with the show, here is abc's official description:

Each week from across the country, two families with very different values are chosen to take part in a two-week long challenge. The wives from these two families exchange husbands, children and lives (but not bedrooms) to discover just what it's like to live another woman's life. It's a mind-blowing experiment that often ends up changing their lives forever.

while the families differ from one another in some respects, they don't exactly represent the full diversity of family forms in the contemporary u.s. after poking around on the website a bit, it seems that breadwinner moms, stay-at-home dads, and same-sex couples are rarely featured. but the fact that wives are swapped rather than husbands probably also says something about the enduring centrality of moms in u.s. households. there are many exceptions, of course, but i'm guessing that moms are far more frequently the real household managers, rule creators, and rule enforcers. a dad swap show would thus be boring (if the dads adapt to their new surroundings without a whimper), or dangerous (if they try to take charge in an unfamiliar setting).*

the show's premise involves setting up contrasts that lead the moms, dads, and kids to question their taken-for-granted assumptions about household functioning. i watched a bit of the show last night, in which the new york family above was paired with a lederhosen-wearing new hampshire family running a german-themed bed and breakfast. it felt creepy and voyeuristic at times, but it was also intriguing to see the moms' alternative visions. there were also a few moments that looked like real discovery, in which the kids figured out that certain aspects of their home life were really messed up and didn't, necessarily, have to be that way.

i know this is just a cheesy reality show, but i started speculating about a longitudinal analysis of potential treatment effects. would the families immediately slide back into their old roles after such an experience? would they have a new appreciation for one another? or, might the "radical shock" lead to real changes and/or family dissolution?

again, i know this is just a cheesy reality show, but i could also see some therapeutic value in learning how another home operates for a week. of course, i wouldn't want anybody filming my household interactions, though i could probably learn a lot from the experience. my family never sought any family counseling (not that we didn't need it), but i could imagine us signing up for this sort of procedure if it was pitched by a counselor rather than a tv producer:

In the first week of the swap, the wives move in with their new family and adopt their very different lifestyle. They agree to follow a manual written by the departing wife that sets out the rules of their new household -- how they parent, shop, do the house work, manage their budgets and their social life. But then, in the second week, everything changes. The new wives take charge. They introduce their own set of rules and get to run the new household their way. It's a radical shock to both families... At the end of the show, the two couples meet for the first time. In a highly-charged exchange of views, both couples make a frank assessment of each other and talk about what they've learned from the experience.

though i'm personally happy to leave this as a thought experiment, i bet i'd discover at least one dumb and counter-productive parental practice that i could correct, just as a semester in another department might reveal at least one dumb and counter-productive management practice in my department. i'd also be fascinated to see how other moms or dads would deal with tor and esperanza -- and how i might deal with mortal children. i have no doubt that my kids would emerge from the experience with their expectations confirmed: some of our household rules and practices are, indeed, a bit on the weird side. that said, we might also gain a bit more appreciation for one another.

* older baseball fans may remember an infamous dad swap in 1973, involving yankee pitchers fritz peterson and mike kekich, who swapped wives, kids, cars, houses, and dogs. this sort of thing was inconceivable to a young twins fan, but seemed perfectly appropriate for ball four-era pinstripers. wikipedia also mentions a pilot for a husband swap show and a lawsuit involving a same-sex swap.