05.31.07

Big Love: Three Reasons Why I Love a Show About Polygamy

Posted in Dawn's Writing at 7:25 pm by Dawn Miller

My new column about the HBO hit series, “Big Love,” is out. Check it out online with a YouTube clip or read below:

Big Love: Three Reasons Why I Love a Show About Polygamy

HBO’s hit show, “Big Love,” a tale about the Henricksons, a perfectly average middle class suburban family consisting of a Dad, three wives, and seven kids returns June 11th – and I can’t wait.

Perhaps it’s because as a stepmom in a blended family, I see mirrored in the jealousies, feelings, and interactions on the show, some of the situations that emerge in my stepfamily that aren’t addressed in other places.

Even if you are not a polygamist, marriage is for so many of us – a package deal. When I married my husband – I didn’t marry just him. I also got 3 kids and one ex-wife.  She is like a satellite in orbit tethered to our marriage. Her choice of words to the kids, financial decisions, and career pursuits affect us.

And I’m not the only one with a bio-mom inhabiting my universe. Thirteen million women in the United States today are stepmothers, and 92% of them do not have sole custody of their stepchildren. Shared custody means that stepmoms are influenced by and must interact with bio-moms in many ways. Small wonder “Big Love” resonates so deeply.

When Barb wanted to take a teaching job and her sister wives, Nicki and Margene, complained that she was offloading work and counting on them to pick up the slack – I could relate. I could see the knowing nods of a thousand stepmoms stuck with carpool duty, birthday party chauffeuring, and soccer practice because the bio-mom took a new job and dumped the schedule on her after the fact.

What one of us does, affects the rest. Like it or not – we are stuck with each other – forever – because of the kids.

Our values influence how we raise our children, but just because we are different in approaches doesn’t mean our kids are worse for it. So often in stepfamilies, we find that our core values influence how we structure our households and that our two homes don’t entirely agree. In my home, things will never be spic-and-span, but it will never be as carefree as my husband’s ex-wife’s home – hopefully the kids will in adulthood end up somewhere in the middle between clean and complete pig-sty.

Even among the three wives on the show, there is dispute over the core values that guide their lives. Nicki was so scandalized when she caught Margene smoking a cigarette in front of one of the kids, that she reprimanded her for spreading bad values to the kids. And she neglected to realize that by revealing her own secret, Margene lured Teeny into revealing one of her own.

As much as we may not like our differences at times in blended families, on many issues, our children are better for getting more than one perspective.

Raising children really does take a village. The reality is that our children are influenced by a variety of care-givers and influencers. No matter how good a parent is, he or she cannot spot everything going on with a child. Teachers, coaches, family friends and so many other people affect our children and the people they become.

When teenager Ben and his girlfriend Brynn made up after school and started making out, they were caught by Nicki and Margene on pick-up patrol, not his mom and dad. And it’s Margene, the ditzy third wife with a heart of gold, who reminds Ben how lucky he was to be taught that sex is sacred and virginity should not be given away easily. Even strait-edged Nicki notes that it really does take a village to raise children, and no one can do it alone.

For a show about a practice most Americans find utterly distasteful, “Big Love” explores what binds non-traditional families together in a way few television shows do.

Dawn Miller writes a column on life in blended families at www.thestepfamilylife.com.

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