So I'm partially ashamed to admit this but one of the TV shows I love watching is Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Part of this love comes from an idea that I read in Seidman's book entitled Interviewing as Qualitative Research where he states "I interview because I am interested in other people’s stories". Well I like this show because I love hearing people's stories. I especially love the idea of being able to give to others. A home, what a beautiful thing to be able to give someone! Unfortunately every time I watch this show I'm fighting a battle inside myself.
Part of this battle makes me feel like stopping the show and sending them a letter telling them how awful the show is and the idea behind it. This part of me understands that building a new home for someone else is probably emotionally a really awful idea. Unlike going to an architecture firm and having them build a house for you, or even going around the neighborhood / town and choosing your own home, the people on this show do little to cater to the individual families. They spend just a few minutes before picking one thing to blow completely out of proportion in that person's room. For example if a little girl wants to be a princess she gets an entire princess room complete with a castle inside. To start this is hardly practical. Little girls only want to be princesses for a small portion of their lives before they outgrow this (or get tired of the idea). Secondly moving is an extremely stressful situation and to put these families that are already under so much pressure in, to some degrees, a more stressful situation is not an idea that I particularly like. There have been several episodes where they build these huge homes for the families and don't pay off their mortgage. No matter what else is given to the family I am sure that there is almost no way possible for them to pay off the mortgage of these even larger homes. Even the families where they are able to pay off the mortgage I am sure are burdened by much larger utility bills than they were used to before and even having to pay for electronics that have been left in the house and any sort of fixing-up that the house may need since it wasn't originally built customized for them.
The other part of me wants to congratulate them for helping others and giving them such wonderful gifts. And loves watching a show that does such a good job of making me emotional. Which part do you agree with?
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