Somewhere in the endless manual of rules for those who want a quiet life without becoming the target of (online) ridicule, it says: don’t come on TV. Don’t join a high-risk game show, avoid island dating shows and relationship tests, and don’t drag your kids after you in your quest to become famous.
So that will be cheerful prize shooting for the assembled Twitter army, I thought when I saw the announcement of How are things at your house? (EO), the latest shovel on the now significant mountain (A house full, What are they doing it for?) peek programs that have recently been poured out on the television viewer.
The titles all leave little to the imagination, another similarity. In case of How are things at your house?, of which the first episode was broadcast on Monday, it concerns two families with two completely opposite parenting styles. They take a look at each other’s home to see how the other is doing from a parenting point of view. Could they learn something from each other, that’s pretty much the starting point. And would the television viewer have something to laugh about, was the (somewhat cynical) thought that followed.
When the families were introduced, it also seemed to be heading in that direction. Mother of two children Sharon Bouterse stood in her exploded living room and described her parenting style as go with the flow. Nothing is necessary, everything is allowed, they go on holiday a lot and the household comes last. Because you can of course try to get rid of that mountain of dirty sheets in a hurry, but why would you if you can also build a hut outside with the children first?
Peace, cleanliness and regularity is what Sharon’s opposite Jeanine Boerendans (four children) aspires to. She runs her tightly organized household on the clock, because ‘a day without planning is hopeless’. The result is a tidy house, but a tired mother.
On paper, the program has everything to allow viewers to criticize things at home. Yet, strikingly enough, that does not happen – as witnessed by the remarkably mild couch potatoes who can also be seen in the program. This is partly due to the nuanced montage of the makers: against a remarkable choice of parenting (everyone has their own iPad and headphones during dinner, for example, as if the worst thing that could happen during the meal is that someone gets it into their head against something to say another…) is a moving scene, such as a particularly cute bedtime ritual.
What also helps: the sympathetic mothers who are genuinely interested in each other, because they realize that, however different, they share the same fate. If it’s all hands on deck and you’re never alone for a moment, not even in the bathroom, all tips are welcome.