A Summary of The Tv Reality Program Wife Swap and a Slant About Diversity

Function and harmony; Dysfunction and chaos; What’s it all about?

Experimenting with polarized family structures shows us the effects of conditioning relative to function and harmony. Some families are rigid, some are unstructured. Some are in-between. As individuals, we all adapt and function in different ways managing our territory, fulfill doing what we think is right by our belief systems, and also, maintaining our comfort-zone; most of us, in the most conflict-free way that we can.

One reality TV program offers some insight as to how familiarity and conditioning play a part in family-standards of living.

The ABC reality TV program Wife Swap is a great experiment that demonstrates how two wives (sometimes  mothers or husbands) are able to switch families for a two-week long challenge, to explore living with a family that is fundamentally, (usually) the opposite kind of family that they normally live with. The challenge for the wives is that they need to adapt to the new life-style, also bringing to the table new ideas, along with constructive criticisms to help make the (visited) families function more effectively, while the other family members (as well) adjust to, and bond with their new guest.

The exposure of the two different standards-of-living the two families posses that are chosen to participate in the experiment shows how particularly, extremely different (polarized) two families can be; and if you watch the show on a regular basis, you may see how every ones household is subject to everyday conditioning, in which those practices are not neccessarily etched-in-stone, but are subject and relative changing habits, and a comfort-zone (among other things). They also however, seem to be influenced by familiarity and adjustment, by which is subject to how we are conditioned, adjust to, and accept change, and of course what we value and prioritize. An example: Some people take their shoes off right away when they come home, and others don’t. Some people are more protective of what they value, or – they were conditioned to protect what they value more.

In-part, etiquette seems to be what has been traditionally instilled in us, by ritual/everyday habit – what we have been accustomed to, by practice – and what kind of time setting we live in, and comfort-zone we have established; rather than an absolute, objective, tangible, etched-in-stone right-and-wrong. Standards can change, a lot like when something that was taboo thirty-years ago, is now very normal and accepted; and like something that is taboo right now, was very normal and accepted thirty years ago, is brought about by a gradual shift in values and perception- by conditioning. That perception change that happens when we change the way we look at things by when we shift our point-of-view, and gain insight or become desensitized; a conditioning; with time and a familiarity with adjustment or rejection - acceptance or non-acceptance. The TV program Leave It to Beaver and the (other) reality TV program The Osbournes is an example of how time changes things.

Everything seems to be relative to how we have been conditioned and how we look at normal. After-all, how common is normal? Normal may be in the eye of the subjective observer.

One family (in general) may look over at the backyard of another family’s and wonder, “How can they be that rigid?” – as well as, the second family may look at the first family’s backyard and say, “How can they be so unstructured?” What we perceive as normal, may be primarily relative to our conditioning, and belief systems. Behavior, values, preferences, and personal choices, are as diverse as we are individual. One person’s chaos may be another person’s harmony.

If we have the opportunity to visit another country, one that is quite different than our own, and spend let’s say – ninety-days there, we will certainly be able to appreciate the differences, and within three-months, we may start to get comfortable with the new foreign place and be reluctant to leave our new friends, but “dollars-to-donuts,” ”there’s no place like home” – and upon returning to our home, we may realize how sweet it really is!

That is basically how “Wife-Swap” works. The wives return home to their own families, with an awesome appreciation of familiarity and a great sense of belonging; and both families by the switching of the wives, learn about the customs and practices of their neighbors – the ones with the polarized backyards… meaning that everyone is different.

It’s the gray areas and uncertainties that make the diversity of life so interesting and challenging.

Being that we will always be individually diverse, there will always be a challenge to find a common-ground to function and cooperate in harmony, if that is the common-goal.

Too Idealistic?:

If finding a common-ground can be more easily attained by putting ourselves in “someone else’s shoes” gaining a better perspective as to how we can work together, adapt, and better the larger macro – “big-picture” unit - by bringing new ideas to the table, constructive criticisms, and an open mind, maybe overall, we can at some point achieve an ideal kind of harmony; perhaps a universal comfort-zone – hypothetically speaking of course, because maintaining harmony in our own (functional) immediate or local personal territory and comfort-zone, may be a humongous feat in itself. Before we look at someone else’s backyard, we should always look to see if our constructive-criticisms can be applied to our own backyards as well. By the nature of the human, that is a standard that is quite easy to double.

Practically speaking, simply gaining the insight of being in “someone else’s shoes” to get a better perspective may help one to not take-for-granted the things in our own backyard; to prioritize our values better. 

Perhaps we can start a new reality program and call it something like: Tourist Swap, (having two families from different countries swap, for example - wives for a brief time) - and see if we can gain a greater insight as to how the other countries live, and appreciate our similarities, as well as our differences; to “change the way we see things,” by “changing the way we look at things” - at a different angle, to better our perspective.