Nanny 911 - Reality TV?

I have several friends named Vicki. This particular one I am posting about is a very dear friend. We travel a lot together. She, I and our 10 young children -- 9 boys and 1 girl -- all under the age of 9. Always makes for interesting travel. We have been to Arkansas together for a week where we rented a condo and hung out at the beach with all the kiddos and another friend from Texas. Last year we traveled to Mississippi and Alabama together. But that has nothing to do with the title of this post. I just want you to understand how good of friends we are (or else we put up with each other because nobody else will travel with us?)

Anyway, Vicki is going to be on Nanny 911. You know the show. Where a nanny comes to spend a week with you - observing your family for the entire first day, having a meeting with the parents after the monster children are in bed and then spending the next 6 days "reforming" the children and teaching the parents all they need to know to raise little angels.

Vicki was in the mall in St. Louis a few months ago with her boys - oh yeah, she has 6 boys and the Nanny 911 people were there recruiting families to be on the show. Vicki naturally attracts a lot of attention and before you know it - she was signed up as an interested person. They were after her hot and heavy - 6 boys - a homeschooling family - one handicapped child - what they wouldn't do for that to be on TV. A few weeks later the tv people came to her house to do some initial filming of the boys. They came on a day when Vicki was having a yard sale - I think it was to make things appear more chaotic in the background.

There have been lots of phone calls and emails back and forth. Vicki and her husband, along with the boys are on vacation now. The tv people flew into Denver to meet with them - as they traveled - and brought a psychiatrist to interview each parent for an hour and the 3 older boys for a half hour each- all separately.

Now they have been told they have been selected to be on the show. The camera crew and Nanny will be at their house next Monday morning - after they return from vacation late night Sunday. Again, it seems to me they just want things to be as chaotic as possible. 6 kids fresh out of a 3 day -- 28 hour car trip across the country.... Mountains of laundry... a dog who hasn't seen them in nearly 2 weeks... trying to get the boys to do school work on cue -- good TV viewing.

Their compensation for asking for "help" is $20,000. I do not care how much money it is - there is no way I would subject my family to this - and I have told her this in every way possible known to man. A normal, well behaved family - which for the most part is what they are - will not make good TV viewing. I fear to the depths of my toes what they will try and make them look like.