Naomi mocks her mother's attempts to impose a 2am curfew as she disappears up the stairs with a bottle of wine. Ross tells his parents he wishes he could take pictures of them burning alive. Jono has been reported missing four times and has taken to sleeping in alleyways. Prospective mums and dads goo-ing over babies should be warned that the teenage years are not for the faint-hearted. But can The World's Strictest Parents save us?
Each week the show takes two teenage handfuls from different despairing families and deposits them in the homes of strict disciplinarians. There are fireworks aplenty as volatile youths spark off the restrictions imposed. But will eight days shock them out of years of disobedience and disrespect?
Parenting programs are not new and discipline has always been the key to taming progeny. The producers of The World's Strictest Parents seem to be searching for 'tough love' in the homes of the deeply religious: Naomi and Ross are sent to live with conservative Christians in Alabama; the series' Australian producers have approached missionary organisations like the Bush Church Aid Society for prospective parents.
Of course the predictable stereotypes emerge. Christian stand-in mother Lynn Garnett warns of the necessity of checking every bag, broadcast and iPod that enters their home: "Satan wants to devour our kids "” he wants to pull them away into outer darkness!"
But it is hard not to admire husband Mark Garnett's determination to be involved at every conceivable point: "Someone's going to raise them. It's either going to be MTV and MySpace or Mark and Lynn . Throwing them to the wind and letting them stumble into adulthood by themselves "” I can't think of anything more detrimental to a child's development."
The World's Strictest Parents can't help but critique more liberal styles of parenting that suggest the best thing for children is to get out of their way so they can grow. But the thing I find most curious about this series is its shifting perspective in relation to blame.
The parents of these troublesome teens invariably make it clear that their children are the architects of their unhappy family lives. They have reasoned, rewarded and restricted "” in short, they have 'tried everything' "” all to no avail. Their children are not like other progeny; they are unmanageable.
However, each episode the teens are committed to the care of 'the world's strictest parents' and changes begin to occur. The level of transformation varies from week to week but the implied lesson is the same: the right person can make a difference. Almost imperceptively, the blame shifts. By the end of the episode it is clear that the teens are not unmanageable; it is the mums and dads who have failed to manage them correctly.
Personally I don't think it's fair to pillory parents this way. Their teens are reasoning human beings, accountable for their actions. Does that excuse the parents for their role in producing petty tyrants? Not at all. I think the production is on to something in identifying their culpability, it just doesn't go far enough.
The corollary to living in a world where people can make a difference to their or others' circumstances is that everyone who has had a part to play will bear some of the responsibility should things not work out.
The World's Strictest Parents is actually a game show on which the audience is invited to reward parents and children with varying amounts of blame. There is even the sideline competition of being be able to decide just how crazy that week's stand-in parents are. There is no consideration, though, of the society that these children inhabit, the media they absorb, the informal and formal education to which they are subjected.
The only person whose parenting is not considered is the viewer's "” and that's the unfortunate part.
