We announced it a few days ago, the television network Cuatro began to broadcast a program about teenage mothers. The program is broadcast (for now, because we already know how variable television programs are) on Friday nights.
This Friday was the first program, and although I could not see it in its entirety I can bring some conclusions (and questions) about this format. If in the title of this post I wonder "Help or morbid?" It is not because I have to choose between one of those options, but because I ask myself what kind of format we are in, if it really helps, only halfway or if the morbidity is the first.
It is clear that the program is a mix of the format coach (training or teaching) and reality show in the style of "Big Brother", with 6 teenage mothers locked up with their babies in a secluded house for 15 days. They will not be alone (at least not totally), but a psychologist, 2 nurses and a pediatrician will try to help and supervise them in their work as mothers (but not only as mothers).
As I will say next, I think it has good things, but mostly bad ones, and above all I have many doubts about the ethicity of this type of television space, although perhaps talking about ethics on television is a lost cause.
I have several questions before this initial approach. Who decides what is best for the care of a child? Isn't it bad to get mothers out of their environment at crucial moments like the first weeks of their babies' lives? Where are the parents? Why force even the girls who had a really bad time the first few days? They are young, but adult, and mothers, shouldn't their wishes be restored? What kind of prison control (not talking on the phone, touches of target ...) exists in the house? Do not manipulate with images (black and white, slowdown, music ...) to increase the drama?
But let's go in parts.
To what extent do they solve girls' problems? It is true that they have helped mothers in some matters, such as the great support that the girl who wishes to relate to her baby received, or teach them to care for a baby, not always assuming that in the face of the slightest movement or groaning what she has is hunger but that you may simply need to see us, to talk to you, to touch you ...
Although there are other cases where young women are clearly not helped, such as the mother who has big problems with her partner and this has an impact on her stay at home. Prohibiting her from talking on the phone and pressing her telling her that it is affecting her baby, I don't think it's helpful.
In fact, related to this, one of my big questions is whether it is good to get the girls out of their environment to help them. Here they are suddenly immersed in a world surrounded by cameras, with strange rooms, loneliness, living with strangers ... It would have been better if the psychologist and nurse came "to the rescue" in each of the girls' houses, with their partners (in case they have them) or relatives, since they are fundamental in the process of raising the baby, leaving aside the cruelty that seems to separate them from their surroundings.
Although they and they have decided so, we could say ... We can all overcome a new situation although I do not know if to the point of trying the solution in a television program. But I do not understand how a 16-year-old couple who sought to be parents arrive at this time with misinformation or lack of help such that they decide that the mother and the baby separate and go to this reality.
On the other hand, there are mothers with 15-day-old babies and others with older children, up to 18 months. Clearly there is a difference between the needs of one and the other, those with older children perform much better, the practice and contact with their babies is noticeable, while the more novice (and who has not happened in major or minor measure) they are simply disoriented and inexperienced.
Who decides what is best for the care of a child? Maintaining a strict order in the routines or in the house does not seem to me to be fundamental, however in the house much is insisted on it. Should we accept it like that because?
On the other hand, looking at the images that announce upcoming programs, I am afraid we will see "solving problems" of sleep leaving little ones to cry, which may seem acceptable to some people but harmful to others. Of course, taking refuge in the fact that the girls are inexperienced and without too much information, it sounds like "here I command" and this is the best. Why?
Are images not manipulated to increase drama? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is television, morbidity is sought. The situations appear dramatized, even digging into personal problems of the girls that they clearly do not want to show. Situations that probably almost any father has seen in his baby (abundant vomiting, loss of balance in our arms with risk of falling) are emitted again and again in slow motion and with dramatic music, magnifying the facts.
If what is wanted is that these mothers are advised and oriented in the education of their babies, it would be necessary to do it before they were born, providing them with all the information and help so that they know how to develop later with the newborn. As parents who decide to be, it should be their responsibility to inform themselves. Other couples whose fatherhood has come by surprise may need more help.
But in any case, everyone, later, in their homes, will move forward with errors, with tests ... and that's why we have to pass all the parents, because the magic wand does not exist, and each child has their own instruction manual. That this program does not try to sell us that they have the wand.
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