Parenting on Television

Trending among the popular reality shows are shows that offer the positive and negative challenges of parenting. Popular shows include Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, 18 and Counting, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, and etc. Networks pick families with extreme circumstances or situations and turned it into a media frenzy. Is displaying your family’s business and putting your children on television necessarily the best thing for your family?

The Duggar Family from the hit reality show “19 kids and Counting” recently received negative criticism for expressing their excitement for having more children after giving birth to their 19^th premature daughter Josie. Yes, this family has nineteen kids with the same mother and father! Usually an older child is responsible for taking care of one of the younger children sort of like a buddy system. Can you properly give nineteen children the individual attention they need? Is there pressure for the family to continue to have children in order to please the network and make a little extra money?

One of my favorite shows in right now is MTV’s Teen Mom. It’s so funny how they have a show dedicated to teen parenting because back in my mother’s day (1960’s) if your friend was pregnant at a young age, you were advised to stay away from them and they were like out casts. In today’s society there’s an epidemic; everybody and there mama is pregnant!

 Of course during the show the message is being sent that you should wait to have kids and that it’s hard. While I love this show I can’t help but to look at the picture and wonder why out of six girls, only four continued for another season. Did they choose to stay from in front of the camera and raise their children? Or perhaps did the network decide to only pick the four girls they thought would bring the most drama and excitement to the show?

Do the stars of these shows get caught up in the lime light and change themselves in order to give the people what they want? Both Amber form Teen mom and Kate Gosselin lost a significant amount of weight. What do you guys think?