(See also: “Thank God for SuperNanny” by Natalie Stilwell)
At the last judgment, when all the nations are gathered together, the book of life is opened, and the hidden counsels of each man’s heart are brought to light, I believe that it will be both to the glory of God and to the saints who have overcome their failings. But for now, it is painfully embarrassing to have one’s foibles exposed and dirty laundry aired for all to see.
So it’s hard for me to understand why anyone would allow their dirty laundry aired on national television—even before as good natured an audience as Natalie Stilwell describes. I am, however, more skeptical than she of the disposition of most viewers watching these reality-television shows. Some viewers may earnestly cheer on the floundering families on SuperNanny and come away with helpful child-rearing advice, but I suspect most simply pause in their channel surfing to watch, out of sick curiosity, these domestic disasters just as they would slow down on the highway to gawk at a car accident. Or perhaps they tune in for a whole episode because “’tis sweet,” as Lucretius said, “to watch another’s laboring anguish far, / Not that we joyously delight that man / Should thus be smitten, but because ‘tis sweet / To mark what evils we ourselves be spared.”
It is even harder for me to understand why any parent would allow their children to be so exposed. It may be true that the parents are always at the root of their domestic dramas, but the show certainly doesn’t illustrate their children’s shining moments.
I can look back on my own worst childhood behavior with a mild sense of shame and a tremendous sense of gratitude that there are only five other people in the world who witnessed most of these antics. But for the children on shows like SuperNanny all of their worst moments—the kicking, biting, spitting, and screaming—are all carefully documented, broadcasted to millions of strangers (always with the possibility of reruns); perhaps the more extreme tantrums are edited and posted on YouTube to be circulated through e-mail among people who will never know any of the children’s more endearing qualities or how they may have grown out of their bad behaviors.
The parents on these shows, by going on these shows, seem careless of their children’s feelings and their good name. We naturally desire that the people we love should be loved and esteemed by others. We should, therefore, be fiercely protective of the beloved’s good name and image—Mr. Darcy, Jane Austen speculated, would prize “any picture of [Elizabeth Darcy] too much to like it should be exposed to the public eye.” These parents expose not any picture of their children to the public eye, but the worst picture.
Meghan Duke is a junior fellow at First Things.
Comments:
Beyond that though, I have some doubts about the underlying presumption that children’s bad behavior is the fault of the parents. More precisely that claim is ambiguous, and a lot rides on how it is understood. If parents cause children to misbehave we seem to be denying children agency, and that raises doubts about the justice of punishing them for their behavior by putting them in a ‘naughty spot’ or whatever. We can avoid this worry by insisting that time outs and the like are not punishment but only techniques for stopping behavior parents don’t like. But in that case it seems we’re just manipulating children to get their behavior to be more amendable to adult preferences and sensibilities. That may be the right way to understand "discipline", but it does evince a very distinction understanding of what parents are trying to do that is probably at odds with what most parents think they are doing.
Alternatively, we can acknowledge that up to a point children are indeed moral agents who can be held responsible for their behavior, and so rightfully punished. In this case, the parents are still at fault if their children are out of control, but their fault is in allowing their children to be bad. The ‘root’ of the problem would remain in children what it is in all of us—our tendency to be selfish and indulgent of appetites and passions. If we prefer this interpretation we need to be more forthright in using a moral language to characterize children’s misbehavior and our responses to it, and more explicit about the underlying moral picture we are appealing to. To this end the curiously amoral language of modern parenting—behavior is "inappropriate", or "unacceptable" or "disruptive" but never bad or wrong—is unhelpful. For all its practical values, SuperNanny encourages us to skirt over these kinds of questions in the search of ‘effective’ techniques.
The parents who participate are looking for real help. They are well screened and all seem very sincere and very sincerely lost. The Super Nanny becomes their first sound advisor on parenting.
Mostly though, it is a VERY UPLIFTING show. We get to see the families transformed and there has not been one show that did not have a very happy ending. Great television.
I am not sure how I feel about airing the kids on TV, though. I'd say in the past, I viewed the kids with empathy and remembered my own childhood antics. I also appreciate how SuperNanny always holds the parents the most accountable. Still, it's always debatable if we should put kids on reality TV shows.