To ask what type of parent would you be matched with on wife swap

[Millsbills]

Rewatching some classic wife swap earlier, first time watching when actually a wife/mother myself.

it got me wondering what type of person I’d be matched with to swap.

For those that don’t watch it, families are usually matched based on being polar opposites. Think tiger mum swapped with a mum who hasn’t managed to get her kids into school all year, a woman who has organised their wedding down to the height of the grass and a woman who is planning to get married in a weeks time with no prep.

So I’m wondering, what type of parent/partner do you think you’d be ‘matched’ with. Who would be the ying to your yang?

I’d be swapped with my mother in law. DH might not want to swap back.

It's a great question and I used to love Wife Swap.

I'd be swapped with someone who knits their own broccoli, has 6x DC, a relaxed attitude to schooling and bedtimes, and who does loads of creative, messy stuff with the kids.

I'd like to think that I'd embrace the experience but I suspect that I'd spend the week in a cupboard rocking gently.

Someone who doesn’t do any cooking and feeds their kids UPF and packet foods and has a dirty home.

I guess I’d be matched with someone glamorous, who keeps their home spotless, and is quite strict.

If I’m going out the house, I’ll do my eyebrows (mine are very light blonde and overplucked - used to be the “fashion” 😂) and I’ll wear a T-shirt, skinny jeans, Converse, maybe an oversized cardigan if it’s cold. I definitely go for comfort over glam nowadays!

There’s always toys out, I never seem to get around to putting the washing away, and there are always dishes waiting to be done! We have a loose routine, but we tend to just go with the flow and decide what we’re doing based on how we feel that day.

Someone with one of those very white sterilised houses with nothing in them who never reads books or goes out and has a useless husband. That is the opposite of me.

Strict, joyless and immaculately houseproud. I am very gentle and laid back with DC, with a scruffy-ish house and we had a lot of fun playing together when they werre small.

A clean freak with a minimalist house who lets 6 year olds out to roam the streets and feeds the chicken nuggets.

Can’t beat a chicken nugget

oh definitely someone houseproud who spends lots of money on appearances, but in quite a "towny" way- lots of very mainstream taste, immaculate but not quirky. New cars, nails, hair, dresses up for the school run, likes labels and brands, has loads of blue water in their toilet, hoovers three times a day, everything has to be new. In fact I think there was a wife swap one with a family who loved their brand names?? it might have been the American show. The spoilt kids had to go and build a homeless shelter or something and ruined their trainers. And the more crunchy mum learned to have some fun and not feel guilty about sometimes joining the consumerist rat race.

There would be a scene where I struggled to do false eyelashes in the morning and she refused to go and do my job with no makeup on.

I'd be matched with an ultra clean, organised and glamorous mum who only feeds her kids vegan home grown organics and organises so many activities and days out that she rarely just "hangs out" with them.

Fat racist lazy self-obsessed ill-educated mum of 8 by 12 different dads
/or/
Long fingernails fake-tan'd fake-boobs materialistic luxury lover
/or/
Pious bigoted shrill fierce stupidly wealthy some-other-ethnicity / culture

Someone with 10 girls that eats loads of crap?
(I have one boy and am vegetarian. )

Probably a stay at home, home educating parent!

I'm a teacher (full time) and my kids are in wraparound!

Someone who hates big families 😂

Wasn't one of the women sexually assaulted on that show? Late 90's/early 00's telly was vile.

I would be matched with a full time working mum with 1 child in full time childcare and a really tight budget. Weekends would be spent hanging up unironed clothes straight from the tumble dryer and doing household chores or maybe the food shop. Pot noodles for lunch.

You certainly think highly of yourself 🤨

How large is your family? I go between wanting to experience a large family and being terrified

Always has to be one party pooper

I have 4 children but I also have 3 siblings; one has 4 children and 1 has 5 so it’s pretty much a madhouse when we’re all together but I do love it😂

Haha love how secretly smug everyone is.

My swap would be with someone extremely well organised and tidy. I'd die of stress before the end of the week because I'd have lost their house door key and both spare keys on day two and they'd die of sleep deprivation because both my kids get up a million times a night.

I would be put with an old fashioned, male chauvinist type who thinks women should be seen and not heard.
Probably one who's never read a book and sneers at anything cultural.

I'd probably be swapped with a successful suit-and-make-up-wearing businesswoman who employs a cleaner and whose family live close enough to help out when the kids are too ill to go to the child-minder. Kids eat dinner before arriving home, and adults have high-quality ready meals supplemented with the occasional takeaway sushi.

Goodness knows what they'd make me do with my day, because I can't see myself contributing much to the business. Unless they needed a lot of filing

She would completely confuse my children by attempting to make them do their music practice (which they probably would, after the shock had worn off). Then she might suggest baking or a board game, and round off the day by asking which book we're currently reading at bedtime.

Kids would all love it, as would I. Other woman would spend the rest of her life not volunteering for reality shows and gently murmuring something about green grass (possibly while rocking).