STOP THEM BEFORE THEY SWAP AGAIN
I think we now have incontrovertible proof that the NEA is secretly bankrolling ABC’s Wife Swap — a third home-educating family was on last night:
Doreen Flummerfelt is a working mother who has two sons, Marques Banks, 17, and Rashad Hamilton, 12, from her two previous marriages.
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LaShelle Bray – the Baltimore woman she replaced for a week – is a stay-at-home-mother who is schooling her five children, ages 2 to 9, at home.
[…]
Doreen Flummerfelt quickly learned that she wasn’t prepared for the swap.
“The biggest change for me was, one, the kids, two, how dirty the house was, and three, she was a housewife who was home-schooling her kids,” she said.
“I go to work every day, and I come home and my family all shares in the chores,” Doreen Flummerfelt said. “I’m a take-charge person, but she is told what to do. And even when my house is dirty, my friends always say it’s clean.
“This woman had a George Forman grill that still had grease it in from October, and this was December,” she said. “The ceiling fans were dirty. For two days, I did not eat in that house.”
TV-besotted, 15-minute-seeking home educators of America — for the love of God, money, or common sense, KNOCK IT OFF!
4 Responses to “STOP THEM BEFORE THEY SWAP AGAIN”
 Comment by Eric Holcombe February 24th, 2005 at 3:46 pm |
I have seen the first one (I think – both families were white and the homeschoolers were pretty legalistic. The swapped mom gave them sattelite TV) and a portion of this last one (white racist vs. black racist). At first, I thought they picked homeschoolers just because of the odd couple effect – putting someone in the position of well, just plain more work at home than they were used to. I know these shows are heavily edited “to taste”, but it does seem that in the two instances I have seen, the homeschoolers (straight-laced or sloppy) have been shown in a negative light. Then again, all the families were – they just don’t call them public school families. |
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Comment by Anonymous February 24th, 2005 at 7:42 pm |
Is it just me or does the “other” family (the nonhomeschooling one) get more press time than the homeschooling one to bash away at the homeschooling one, I don’t watch the show (I personally think it’s stupid) but I have caught these articles about it and it is always putting homeschoolers down and hardly ever do we here what the homeschooling mom thought. |
 Comment by Andrea February 25th, 2005 at 1:00 am |
Gee, and I was going to call Nanny 911. Guess I better not. I can hear it now. “The homeschooled brats were out of control, cats were walking around on the kitchen counter, and the dog farted alot.” |
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Comment by Eric Holcombe February 25th, 2005 at 10:11 am |
I only watched the first one completely through. I just happened to catch they were homeschoolers. The other family had a pretty mouthy mom with older teen girls that did whatever they pleased, including sleepovers with boyfriends. She was more than willing to spout off “Springer-style” to the homeschool Dad (Imagine Sharon Osbourne moving in with Ward Cleaver) and at both parents in the meeting at the end. The homeschool family kind of came off as seeing they had been too restrictive with their kids (although I think they canned the sattelite TV) and used the experience to evaluate themselves. The non-homeschool Dad seemed to be receptive to change and I think really appreciated the respect demanded of his kids (for his authority) when the homeschool mom was in charge. Mouthy Mom was just pissed off, wouldn’t change a thing and “felt sorry” for the homeschool kids. The whole show’s premise is like a car wreck. If there isn’t conflict, it isn’t entertaining I guess. (The last show was a black woman that stereotypes black men as lazy and a white woman that stereotypes white men as too submissive, both in interracial marriages. I could only stand about 15 minutes). I think they make both families look pretty stupid – but then I think you have to be to go on the show. Not sure what that says about us viewers… |