Life in the McLinden House
Comparison:
After watching both clips of “Wife Swap,” I would make the argument that my parent’s
style of parenting is similar to the Galvan family. While they are not completely alike, there are
some characteristics that are parallel to my parent’s approach to parenting. As a child, my
parents always encouraged the importance of school. My mom has been extremely successful
in school and my father always wished he would have taken school more seriously and had
gone to college. Every day when I came home from school, my siblings and I had to get started
on our homework. It wasn’t until that all of our homework was done and checked by my
parents that we could engage in another activity. My parents always reminded us that we
could not participate in extracurricular activities if we did not keep our grades up in school.
The Galvan’s also enforced strict rules when it came to education. The Galvan’s told their
children that they need to value their education so that they can have a successful future.
Another similarity between my parents and the Galvan’s is having chores. My siblings and I
had chores and normally while we would try anyway possible to get out of doing them, we
spent at least one day a week cleaning our rooms and completing other tasks. Luckily, my
parents were not as obsessive as the Galvan’s were. The Galvan mother would constantly do
inspections of her children and if it wasn’t perfect they were either punished or had to re-do
the cleaning. The final similarity between my family and the Galvan’s is having both parents
working full time. Both my parents worked full time jobs while growing up. Even though my
parents were working during the day, they did what they could to spend time with us during
the evening and over the weekend. My parents tried to get involved in any activities we were
participating in to make up for lost time during the week. I think my mom would have liked to
be a stay at home mom but raising a family is expensive so I understand and appreciate the
sacrifices my parents made for my siblings and I. The Galvan’s were also a family where both
parents were working full time. It definitely put a strain on the relationships they had with
each other and with the children because of the lack of attention and personal time they were
giving their children. Their daughter Elaina was starving for attention from her mother but her
mother was too busy either criticizing her or giving her tasks to complete to acknowledge her
daughter’s needs.
Contrasting
I saw a lot of similar characteristics between my family and the Galvans but there were
almost no similarities between my family and the Blackburns. One of the differences between
my family and the Blackburns was the support they gave their children. The Blackburns never
encouraged their daughter to pursue things that she loved. Therefore she felt like her parents
didn’t care about her interest in cheerleading. My parents always encouraged my siblings and
me to try new things and supported us in activities that we were interested in even if we were
terrible at it. I don’t know how many choir concerts my dad had to sit through before I realized
that I had no rhythm and was tone deft. But even though my choir concerts tortured him, he
always came to them and pretended that I was awesome. Along with the pursuing new
interest our parents always encouraged us to be physically active. Not to the extreme as the
Johnsons but they would always encourage us to walk places instead of getting a ride and
would cancel the cable during the summer months so that we would be more inclined to play
outside then rot on the couch. The Blackburns did not encourage any physical activity for their
children or themselves. Children mirror their parents and if they see that their parents are
leading an unhealthy lifestyle they are going to lead a similar lifestyle. The final difference
between my family and the Blackburns was the distribution of power. The father of the
Blackburn family had to do everything for the family when it came to taking care of the
children and household. My parents have tried to split the work load between the members of
the family. Even when it came to checking my siblings and mine homework, my dad would
check the math and science and my mom would check any other homework we had.
Growing up in my house as a child was filled with both restrictions and freedom. While
there are things that I don’t agree with that my parents did there are many things that I will
probably do if I am ever a parent. Parents have the largest impact on their children and they
need to ensure that they are mirroring the type of behaviors that they think will have a
positive impact on their child’s social and cognitive development.