The madness of modern families

[themoon66]

This is on BBC2 tonight at 8.30pm... looks interesting I thought.....

The Madness Of Modern Parenting

All parents want the best for their children but more people than ever seem to be turning into panic-stricken obsessives in their over-zealous attempts to get it all absolutely right.

As this series shows, the madness can descend on many fronts ? from competing against other parents to plan the most elaborate birthday party for their precious offspring, to the quest for the perfect family holiday.

Then there are the lengths parents will go to to get the very best for their child, whether faking church attendance for the sake of a decent school entry or spending all weekend doing their child's complicated school project, alone.

A selection of bemused mums and dads reflect on their madder moments in this entertaining, witty and affectionate look at the absurd behaviour being displayed by parents all over Britain.

i knew it was you carrie , regardless of the rest of the programme, the barbie cake was very very funny, even dh laughed at the chop the legs off bit.

unquietdad - no involvement with the production side except to ensure that the book and series coincided in terms of tone and subject area. we had some transcripts to look at as well, but mostly found the interviewees ourselves - very few of whom were from london. i'm pretty sure it was a completely deliberate decision to target middle-class parents, as an antidote to the kind of salacious and censorious exposes of 'sinner lady' type parents or the patronising 'honey we're killing the kids', 'you are what you eat', 'how clean is your house' type shows, where hapless loser is redeemed by strict lady with highlights. they may be the 'worried well' of parenting, but they're angst ridden, nonetheless. wherever you come from, this is a most un-childfrendly society, despite government posturing, and we're the most inexperienced generation of parents ever.
wordsmith - glad you enjoyed the novel
carriemumsnet - did you read our first novel, goodbye jimmy choo. it opens with exactly that scene - a woman trying to get a barbie to stand up in a cake!

the kind of parents on your show AND the bonkers parents on wife swap/supernanny may be poles apart financially but they are both still stereotypes.

fair enough there are obviously parents who behave in the way shown in the documentary but they are pretty few and far between. If you cannot see that your world must be pretty small.

but I suppose it wouldn't be entertainment to look at how normal people do things

Still, I can't quite see how the people on the show are suffering because of an unchildfriendly government. Their problems seemed entirely of their own making.

I think what was so disspiriting was the way none of the parents seemed to like any of the other parents or their children's friends - maybe this was because the editors cut bits, but some of the talking heads just came across as not very nice.

Carrie, I would have loved to have watched a programme about parents actually having FUN with their children - now that would be a novelty on TV at the moment!

All that stuff about catchment areas being measured with pedometers - er, that was a bit bogus, wasn't it? I mean, here it's quite clear - on the council website you look up your address and it's either in one catchment or another. They draw the line between house numbers: 1-54 inc. Acacia Avenue are in the catchment for St. Xavier's For High Achievers and 55-100 inc. are in Bash Street Comp. The catchment and distance are two separate things.

I find it odd, hatjam - is hatjam still here? - that there's no "based on the book of the same name" or even a credit or a plug at the end, especially given that many of the anecdotes are the same. Those about Xander and his book this week, and the child drawing like Miro - they were WORD FOR WORD the same. (Don't know who the hell draws like Miro at primary school. My child draws more like Milo. Out of the Tweenies.)

You can even match names to faces now, always assuming actresses weren't hired to parrot the exact anecdotes from the book... they all seem terribly RADA...

UnquietDad, I'm afraid the pedometer bit is absolutely true round here. Indeed, I know people who went out and hired one to do it themselves in order to challenge the council. They weren't even mad competitive parents - this was for the local comp.

it is so scripted

they all speak in teh same way

with that irritating London sarcasm and self-deprecation

It was sooo unrepresentative of life a s I know it - and we are well off professionals with friends in private and state schools. We hire a leisure centre for 2 hours for swimming/footie or arts and crafts cater our own food home made sarnies and fairy cakes with crisps etc
have some wine or beer for the adults give a balloon and a packet of sweets when the kids leave spend about £10 on presents party costs 60-70 quid. (Most of my friends househld income tops 100k) Sorry to be vulgar and mention income but just to illustrate we are not tight we are just not flash or obsessed with what people think - I assume we are normal and those tossers on the TV think they are normal?

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i knew it

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At least three of them are real people...or columnists for the Evening Standard, at any rate.
I didn't even bother last night, it was such a pile of poo last week.
My half-hour of parenting-documentary watching was spent on the brilliant, truthful Children of Helen House. Some of the Madness of Parenting talking heads should get a perspective and watch that instead (not you Carrie )

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well it is presented as real parents talking about 'modern parenting dilemmas'

but it all seems very scripted adn tehre is a strange mix of semi-famous faces and unknowns (none of them are named)

and the 'dilemmas' are just silly and probably apply to about 0.02% of the population (of Battersea)

I watched this last night.

It was a waste of time.

About as 'real life' as celeb lifestyles.

Yawn.

Turned it off halfway through b/c some of those accents grated on me like a squeaky hinge.

I started a thread on this last night but everyone seems to be ignoring me atm

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I didnt see last nights

twas about schools I believe

UnquietDad - I can also vouch for pedometer madness. To the extent that primary schools here specify that it will be to the front boundary of the property, i.e gate, to avoid rows about an extra metre to someone's front door...and that the route must be by roads with street lighting not by alleyways.

yes IGNORAMOUS

I get MSN and no focker wants me

well see if I care

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