Reality TV Blues...

A few weeks back, Nick came home all excited about the premier of "Jon & Kate Plus Eight". I'm like, really?? Granted, the show had been in the news a LOT at that point in time so I figured it was just curiosity.

Then last night...the big announcement. The boy tuned in. Frank and I kind of did too. I mean, you KNEW what was coming but couldn't help but watch. Seriously, it was very anticlimactic. "We're living apart..." No kidding. I'm sure that show had it's highest ratings to date.

Okay, now here's my gripe with the whole thing: Have we, as a society, learned NOTHING about couples who have their own reality TV show??? Nick and Jessica? Brittney and Kevin? Hulk and Linda Hogan? I'm sure there are more but now we can add Jon and Kate to the ever-growing list.

In the real world, marriage is hard enough without a daggone camera crew following your every move. Heck, sometimes it's annoying having the kids follow my every move! Sometimes we're stupid, sometimes we're lazy, sometimes we fight...all of this is normal. But what is NOT normal is the whole darn world witnessing it all! I get paranoid if Frank and I have a disagreement in front of our families, forget about how I'd feel if 8 million people were watching!

I guess to some people it's worth the risk. I mean, Kate got a tummy tuck, make-over, and a hair cut that is as talked about as the "Rachel" was back when Friends first came on TV. You know, I might consider a camera crew living with me if I got the Extreme Makeover: Stace Edition treatment. Then I would REMEMBER all of the marriages that have FAILED during such and endeavor and wake up! But I guess, if I had to defend them (and by them, I mean Jon and Kate), they have a LOT of kids. We have a hard time raising two kids, I can't even imagine the financial hardship of raising eight. So I guess at $75,000 and episode at an average of 20 episodes a season, they were able to maybe set up college funds for their kids and probably have been able to keep them clothes fashionably.

On the down side, these kids have NO IDEA what normal is! There was a skit on Saturday Night Live this season where Zac Ephron hosted. He was making fun of his High School Musical role and was addressing the graduating class of that fictional high school as an alumni. He had to break it to them all that people really don't go around breaking in to song and dance! It was pretty funny. But it makes me wonder if these kids are going to be able to understand when, sometime in the future, there are no cameramen stationed around their house catching their every move. I'd say "Do they go to other people's houses and wonder why nobody's filming it" but right now, they are being filmed everywhere they go! That would seriously grate on my nerves after a very short time.

I was chatting on line with a dear friend today and even she said that she was sad about this whole break-up. I think you can't help but feel bad for those kids. They did not CHOSE this lifestyle. As much as Jon and Kate say that they did this for the kids, they can't really say that for sure, can they? If given the opportunity, would the kids have preferred the bigger house or to have their parents stay together?

I never watched the show, to be honest. The most I ever saw of it was on the E! channel's show "The Soup". They would show clips of it every week and honestly, well...let's just say that Kate did not at all seem like a nice person. You can almost understand why Jon is leaving.

But what about the kids?

What about the kids....