True Life: I’m A Single Parent, MTV
True Life is a MTV drama series dedicated to showing the “true” life of families or people and their similar/same daily struggles. The documentary-type show typically focuses on about two to four subjects who are followed through their daily routine.
The theme of this particular episode is life as a single parent. Thus, the show starts out by introducing a white-middle class woman, Sheena, who is raising her two-year-old daughter. Twenty-year-old Sheena lives at home with her parents and two younger siblings. The father of her daughter is not a part of their lives. Her general attitude toward being single is mostly concern for the development of her fatherless daughter. She stressed the fact that when she dates she keeps her daughter in mind and does not want to invite anyone not willing to help her. Throughout the episode, she dates two men; the second one who is the same age as her actually proposes to her after four months of dating.
For this family, the woman, the mother Sheena, continues to dress up and go out with her friends in order to meet someone. Her eyes are always on men who she thinks will be able to support the idea of her being a single parent. And it is within two or three dates that her daughter comes into conversation. What is more interesting, though, is the fact that she wants to be with someone as well as having someone for her daughter. Her life is surrounded by motherhood and the need for some companionship is even more pushing for her at the moment. She is looking to be independent, but still needing a man – a husband. Upon meeting the second man, Sheena moves from her house and into his house just after his proposal. She looks happy watching her daughter interacting with her father-to-be.
As a person, Sheena appears to be a young woman looking for a good time since she is very young to be a mother. However, she may also appear desperate to some as she continuously looks for stable men. In footage where she is with her fiancé in “their” house, she seems to be dependent on her fiancé emotionally, but also financially. She couldn’t move out of her parents’ house because of financial troubles. As a single mother, she is left with fewer options in terms of relationship choices that are either decided by her or by others. The men that she had dated in the show, those who decided not to date her because of the fact that she had a child, made the choice not to date her because of how she is stigmatized as an unmarried single (young) mother.
The next family is a twenty-year-old Black working class woman, Jocelyn, and her a nine-month-old daughter. Her fiancé is in prison. She works a full time job and has little support from her mother so she lives with her father. Throughout the daily shots of her life, she is spending time with her daughter and trying to work to support them both. Most, though, are showing the intense discussions she has with her mother where both women are talking about how to raise the young baby girl. The mother, one from the days before baby care booklets and clinics, wants to give the baby table food, for example. Jocelyn, however, wanted to give just baby food. There is a difference between the mothers’ senses of motherhood. By seeing so, as a viewer, I am seeing a bad and good mother dichotomy pan out. I caught myself at one point cheering for the grandmother because her voice, in terms of her use of English, and her habits reminded me of my grandmother who managed to raise nine children with my grandfather well.
In other parts of the episode, she is talking about her fiancé. At one point, she makes a video of her and their daughter for him to watch in his cell. Without him there to help her, she says it is difficult for her to go about her daily routine. The depiction of their relationship provides only another example for people who are prejudice and/or racist to take proof in the idea of young Black women becoming single parents. And Jocelyn is trying to be someone who is going to be only single for a bit longer. She is doing her best to make do with her situation. If anything, this family portrays the life women live in being juxtaposed to the prison system and single parent life.
The third and final family is white and middle-class with thirty six-year-old man, David, and 6 young children, two four-year-olds, three three-year-olds, and one ten-year-old. Here, the man “switches” gender roles by being both a father and a “mother.” He struggles with trying to have a relationship as well as he dates to marry. For portion of the episode, he talks about the relationship he had with a woman for several months. He is hoping that she is the one to be a mother to his children. His ex-wife is someone who left him and her children because she decided she could not handle the stress it brought on. Later, she actually shows up unannounced to spend time with her children. David soon after asks her to leave partly because of her illegal visit not discuss within their custody, but also because he is still upset with how and why she decided to leave.
In this portion of the episode, the women are portrayed as people who cannot handle children. Since he can only find few women willing to date him, women who are “good” mothers are few and far between. David’s ex-wife is even depicted as someone who came in and disrupted the life he had made. Despite the fact that she is their mother, she was portrayed as the villain of the scenario and David was given the role of the good father.
In general, this episode of True Life spoke to the roles of men and women as parents. As a viewer, I began to feel some pity for the women who were seemed to be just above the surface with their responsibilities. On the other hand, the man compelled me to sigh and let an “awwww” slip from my mouth. I think it was my reaction to the “switch” of parental gender roles. From how my automatic reaction spoke to me, women are natural caregivers and should be more careful of their decision to have children. But the man received some sympathy in the sense that I was thinking he is doing a great job with something that is not natural for him to be doing. After thinking about my initial reaction, I found that I actually didn’t feel like that and should not feel like that because relationships and life in general do not take place within a vacuum. So things like the prison system are working to fulfill some void in the economy.
Even more importantly, the fact that this reality show is perhaps the least affect by script and direction is extremely necessary to pay attention to. Some “reality” shows are depicting a type of truth that is calling for response from views in a very dramatic way. This show, however, with little to no scripting shows how in everyday life, watching a show that is not meant to pull from the male or female population, can still show some biased of some sort based on the thoughts and reaction we have. It shows more so the thoughts that we have and I then I have to wonder where they cam from. Society is shaping our minds and thoughts. Our respective cultures give us pictures portraying the normal.
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