Parenting and Publicity:

[jrittenhouse]

Meredith has developed over the last year a taste for certain ‘reality’ shows that probe into private lives - as in poking inside a family household to see how it works. I have some real reservations on all of this, which I’ll go into in a minute.

In each of these cases, the family has one or more kids and a non-’conventional’ setup of some sort,

Comments

[lyneidas]

The addictive nature of shows like that is why I decided to go without cable (which means without TV considering the reception in my area) a few years ago.

[lyneidas]

I think that whatever the inconveniences, it's better for the kids to have together time while they are kids.

[amysuemom]

Speaking with both my adoptee and adoptive parent hats on, I think you have made the right choice. If you wait til they are grown you can never give them that time back.

[jrittenhouse]

We got a lot of static from a part of the adoption community (you know what I mean) who said 'you have no right to interfere in their lives like that'. Well, shite howdy, I interfere in Mere's life every day ('pick up your clothes' 'no, you can't have that before supper') and make decisions for her all the time. SHE was the one who was telling us about siter-sister-sister, and the impetus behind all of the trips after maybe the first one was the twines **needing** to be together. I mean, they both had empty spots that each other filled, according to them. And they really do go into this total funk without each other.

Right now, Meredith is totally *OMG*OMG* over the chance to See Sissy, and can hardly wait until we put her on the plane.

[jrittenhouse]

But yeah, I didn't want to take that time from them. And as I've said before - I have an adopted sister 20 years older than I that I've never seen. Never met. All because my dad tried to molest her, which caused the divorce, and he felt she tattled, so as far as he was concerned, she was 'no child of his', and that's what my mom (his next wife) and I were told.

I didn't find the real truth out until a few years ago. Nobody in the family dared tell me.

I was not going to have that sort of absence happen to these two.

[popebuck1]

From everything you've described about how the Merediths interact with each other, I have to agree - it would have been a CRIME to keep them apart and keep their twins' existence a secret from them. And to what possible purpose?

And I can see how Meredith might be fascinated with "weird families on TV" (or "strange family experiment/swap") shows on TV. I don't think you even have to be an adoptive child to go through a phase of thinking 'What if i had been raised by some other family? What would I be like? What if it were those terrible drill-sergeant parents on that show?" I suspect it's a phase almost all kids go through on some level, but to an adoptive kid it has that much more meaning.

[jrittenhouse]

As to keeping them apart - well, take a look sometime at the Identical Strangers book, it's a very good read.

In our case, the 'experts' said that we would traumatize the girls by forcing a relationship on them against their wills, or something like that. Susan may have a better take on it, but the idea was that they thought that it would be best to NOT intrude on the girls, and only tell them later.

The entire attitude was that WE were forcing this on the girls, and it has never been that at all.

I think all kids wonder about different households. There's only one with kids in our family circles...and it (my BIL's) is massively dysfunctional and awful. But yeah, I think you're right on the I-wonder elements on this, especially to adoptive kids. The what-ifs really come out of the woodwork.

[marklafon]

Sad to say but this sort of reality show is close kin to Jerry Springer and his ilk. Much of the root appeal is the chance to see how other people live and see how much better off you are. With Springer is take the form of "I may have problems but at least I am not a teenage lesbian hillbilly in a bad marriage with my cousin". The shows you cite are more refined but still depend on the "my problems are not as bad as theirs", or, conversely, "I am not as dumb/inept/wussy as they are".

[jrittenhouse]

Yeah, I know. Maury Povich tried to book the twins a long time ago, and I turned him down.