I’m sure a lot of you are wondering, as I did, what Dad Camp is. The reason I chose to go with an unknown for this week’s column was simple — I read about this new reality series and simply had to see what it was all about.
From the little I knew before watching, my expectations were of a show about bad dads being brought to task ala those sobriety shows that are all the rage right now. I was ready to see a room full of Dennis Rodmans get lectured on timely child support, the proper etiquette during supervised visitations, and how the juice that kids like is different from the juice that boozers like. And so what I did get was a bit unexpected.
Episode Summary – When it was all said and done, my wife asked me if I was pleasantly surprised. I’d hate to use the word “pleasantly,” because there was nothing pleasant about it. But I was definitely surprised to discover that this show actually aims to preempt those behaviors I assumed it would serve to correct.
What I will say is that all of the participants look like domestic abuse cases waiting to happen (or that already have). These are not merely overwhelmed parents-to-be, but rather a bunch of kids with a lot of problems who are about to become parents themselves.
The challenges last week involved both child safety, as well as some hands-on experience for the dads. Car seat installation is definitely a major issue for everyone today, but I don’t know that it did or didn’t say something about the dads who got really frustrated with the task — some of those car seats are completely counterintuitive, and better they struggle with the damn thing now, rather than when their girlfriends are standing by the car with a screaming infant, waiting to go home from the hospital.
If infant CPR is not a prerequisite for parenthood, it should be. Thankfully most parents never need to use their skills, but it was the single most important thing my wife and I learned in our string of baby preparedness classes. Scratch that … it was the single useful thing we learned, even though we thankfully never had to apply it. I couldn’t believe that one of the mothers refused to do it because she didn’t want to put her lips on the doll … how was that not made into an issue on the show? Why is the preparedness of these women never brought into question?
The main challenge was rather laughable — the dads suffered through one all-nighter with “realistic” baby dolls, getting up multiple times to change, feed, swaddle, or rock them. It was a joke for parents who’ve been through that for six months with their own kids, but on the other hand it’s commendable that all the dads seemed to take the task seriously (I wonder how much they’re getting paid for this). I think the challenge is actually one that should recur as the season continues, and the real evaluation should come at the end, after the last night that they’ve tended to their babies on weeks of no sleep. Then we’ll see who’s changing a good diaper.
I’m not sure I understood the surprise mom visits at the end. Are these couples not going to be raising these kids together? What does the mother’s family matter, unless she’s going to be living with them, the father only popping in occasionally to help? Up until that point I thought this was going to be a two-person effort, but now I’m not really sure what the show was about.
Conclusions – Dr. Jeff, a soft-spoken (licensed?) psychologist, deals with the couples in group therapy sessions, handing out challenges as well as advice. What was interesting to me was how the entire show focuses on the dads’ need to prepare for parenthood — not to suggest otherwise, but the moms are just as ill-equipped to deal with an infant. I would have expected a therapist to at least mention that need, but Dr. Jeff never did over the course of the episode I watched.
He seemed more concerned with how well the dads got along with the moms’ families, something that shouldn’t really make any difference whatsoever, as I said above. If he wants to be concerned with anyone’s family, it should be the babies’, and he should focus on ensuring that these couples aim to stay together as a family nucleus, be they married or not. Teach the dads to care, but also teach them all to be responsible adults, making their own way in the world together.
At some point I began to wonder if this recent television focus on single parenthood and teen pregnancy isn’t being driven by the conservative movement. Think about it for a second … what better way to promote abstinence than to show these kids bumbling parental responsibilities? Because I’m not quite sure what else this show could be about.
Would it help viewers in similar circumstances to watch the participants get practical lessons in balancing a checkbook, keeping a job, finding a good school district, and maintaining a budget? I don’t know. But does it do anything for viewers (or the participants themselves) to spend one night catering to dolls? Unlikely.
Dr. Jeff can always find attention-hungry people to fix. These kids need more than television cameras to cure what ails them.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jun 21, 2010 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
