I really love the reality television genre. It probably started from watching the Real World on MTV and American Idol. It is definitely my guilty pleasure. I pretty much watch it all. That is when I have time. My husband and I have very hectic lives (and who doesn’t in this day and age). Between both of us we have 3 kids, my 12 year old stepdaughter, my 5 year old daughter and my 2 year old son. A day in the life for us consists of my husband getting up at around 4am to go to work. I get up as well because we only have one car. We get the kids up and we put them in the car and we drop off my husband at work. I come back home and put the kids back to bed until 6:30am or so. I usually don’t go back to sleep because I am a notorious insomniac since the kids have been born. I usually pay bills, make the supermarket list for the week or go on the internet. I finally get the kids up and ready. I bring my 2 year old to the babysitter, I bring my daughter to school and I finally bring myself to work. My day has officially started at 8:30am.
While my husband is trying to get his route finished (he works as a salesman for a major food distributor), I am busy working for a major footwear manufacturer trying to get my work finished so that my lunch hour coincides with my husband being done with his route so that I can go pick him up. He usually naps for an hour or so until it is time for me to leave work at 5:30pm. We pick up the kids from their respective places and we head home. Like a well oiled machine my husband and I have the home routine down packed. He starts dinner while I start baths and like a strategic football pass we switch by me finishing up dinner and setting the table while he gets the kids bags for the next day ready followed by bringing the kids to the dining room for dinner. By the time we eat, have the ever so popular bed time story read, night light turned on and kiss is given, it is already 9pm. Usually my husband falls out pretty quickly, I on the other hand stay up to indulge in my guilty pleasure. The television is playing in the background and it is in one of these instances that I heard a commercial for a reality show called Sister Wives on TLC.
It being a reality show I had to find out more about it. It is about a husband and his four wives and how they live a polygamist lifestyle with their many, many children. I found it fascinating that only the first wife is legally married to her husband and the other three wives were spiritual unions as their religion states. Now I certainly wasn’t too familiar with this philosophy. The thought of having other wives in my marriage, made it a weird and at the same time a show for me to watch. I watched a few nights later and was fascinated by the dynamics of it all. How the wives related to each other as well as their husband and how they all cared for their children equally. Yet they each had separate relationships as individuals.
Quite frankly I was exhausted! Two of the wives work while the other two stay home and take care of each other’s children and the general household. It sounds crazy and even watching it didn’t sound feasible, but it somehow works for them. That’s when the wheels in my head started turning. Hmm, what if I had a sister wife? Maybe two? What I mean is have someone that knows my husband and me for years and is invested in our “relationship” (minus the whole sleeping with my husband part) with us as well as the one with our children. I love to work and need to work and I can have my sister wife take care of the house in the same way I would without the added bonus of feeling mom guilt. My children would have a hot meal waiting for them early and would have a chance to relax without them being on our schedules. They can be kids again.
Trust is so important and watching the show it made me realize that my husband and I lack that support system that is so crucial for having a family nowadays. The Sister Wives shows us that with a concerted effort, this can work. When they say “it takes a village to raise a child” they were definitely talking about this show. What we are missing is that sense of community that comes with having family, extended family, in-laws around to help, guide and teach. I must say I did get a little envious to see that support stemming from a seemingly non-traditional setting.
As I started wondering what it would be like and how I could make this work, my reality woke me up. It is 4 am again, time to get up. I guess no sister wife for me today. I really have to stop watching reality shows.
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