Saturday, April 30, 2011

Drama Queens

A few months back my daughter was at the home of a friend with some other classmates. They were hanging out in the yard, being goofy as tween girls normally are. One said something jokingly to another, the other took it the wrong way and went inside to get her mother involved. The mother blasted out the front door, screamed at the girls, cursed at them and told them all the go home.

This is not normal. I don't care what was said, I don't care if someone had their feelings hurt. These were 11 year old girls having a misunderstanding. This is not normal adult behavior.  I told A at the time that I believed the mother was watching too much 'reality' tv and thought this was just how people behaved. (And by 'reality' tv I mean shows that are billed as 'Real' but are scripted & the players are encouraged to act out to get attention.

I was just reading this post about Kurt Vonnegut and his explanation of why people crave drama. It makes complete sense to me. So I won't say that reality tv is causing this kind of behavior, but that it certainly adds to it. And I think it contributes to the divorce rate as well, as people think that marriage is all about hearts and stars and flowers, when in reality it's a lot of day to day LIFE together, with bills and groceries and dog poo. If you get married (or have kids or start a career) and think that it's going to be like some fantastic movie scene every day, you are delusional. Adjust your expectations to real life, not 'reality' life.

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