Where's the Love?

(I used to rock out to this Hanson song all the time. Actually, I am right now.)

Last year, I started watching "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." I had a marathon of online episodes because I missed the first half of the season, and then I dutifully watched each Monday evening for the newest hour of this dramatic saga. I don't watch it anymore. I stopped because I had musical rehearsal during the regular airing of the show's new season, and by the time I got home the next night, I wasn't really feeling like watching a bunch of bratty teenagers rag on each other. That same conflict did not stop me from watching the newest ABC Family ("a new kind of family") series "Make It or Break It." I thought maybe it would be like that movie Stick It, with all the powerhouse gymnastics. I was wrong. It's still a bunch of interpersonal and family drama. Last night, as I sat in front of the TV (knitting a hat) and waiting for "Make It or Break It" to come on, I caught the end of "Secret Life." So much drama. My dad was rearranging furniture and hence, subject to the sound of the television, and his only question was "Don't any of these people like each other?" He must have asked that half a dozen times over the hour and half that we watched these two shows. So that got me wondering, why does it seem that all of the shows that are popular right now feature storylines in which most of the characters not only dislike each other but actively work to destroy one another's lives (or at least make them extremely difficult)? Where is the family in this "new kind of family"? What are we teaching our children (by letting them watch these kinds of programs) about how families and friendships are supposed to work? Hardly anyone is happily married anymore. Everyone has secrets that could potentially ruin each other's lives. If you have a boyfriend, he's probably cheating on you with your best friend. Don't trust anyone. Your parents, if they appear in your life at all, are either trying to live through you or destroy you (not to mention all the drama of their own they're trying to work through).

And even if the goal of this whole "new kind of family" thing is to emphasize that your family doesn't just include people who are actually related to you, there should be some kind of bonding going on, and I really haven't seen that. Maybe I'm missing it, and it's really there, but somehow, I can't imagine having a family that is constantly betraying each other and going behind each other's backs and competing and trying to hurt each other. Sure, I've been blessed with a pretty solid, supportive family (of the related and non-related kind) so maybe I'm just spoiled. Still, it would be nice to see a family that, while it's not perfect, it is trying (kind of like the Keelers on "Make It or Break It", though they've got problems galore looming on the horizon with Payson).

So how does this cycle of negativity stop? Well, I guess we'd have to stop watching, stop buying into whatever "new kind of family" this is and look to a higher standard than what the world says we can achieve. A different "new kind of family" - one in which the members can depend on one another, where everyone's needs are met and everyone has something to offer and no one is left hungry in any way. That sounds like my kind of family.