The premise of Wife Swap is intriguing enough: What happens when, as in one typical episode, a farmer’s wife in rural upstate New York, who runs a household of six children and helps work a barn of 150 cows, trades husband, children and home–but not bed–with a pampered wife in Tennessee who takes two bubble baths a day and is served breakfast in bed by her indulgent husband?
Christie Baker, a Southerner belle through and through, needs no cueing to announce to the world her privileged status, or her aspirations to it, through the shocking pink boa feather stole she casually throws round her neck.
Christie, 41, comes to fashion and style naturally, and flamboyantly. Her father has a jewelry business big on diamonds. She herself ran a ladies’ fashion boutique and an award-winning advertising agency. "It’s not entirely true," she says "that I do nothing but take bubble baths, go to the parlor, and have breakfast in bed." That lifestyle is served in true gentleman fashion by her cheerful husband Richard, 51, who also does house and yard and grocery chores while working 60 hours a week as an engineer.
There’s no "lifestyle," as Christie understands it, living on a farm. During the first week of living with the Donahoes, she had to rise at 4 a.m. and help in the barn. She was shown covering her nose from the stench of the barn, but she wasn’t really that "insensitive," as she puts it, to the feelings of the Donahoe men folk. "The show didn’t show me hugging the cows and attempting to do insemination," she says.
Audrey, 36, on the other hand, who comes from four generations of dairy farmers, is a mother of six– a three-year-old girl and five boys aged four to 17. She works in the barn and does household chores, the laundry and cooking dinner. Husband Jeff, 37, rises at 4:30 every morning to milk the cows and run the dairy business, while the older children spend up to six hours daily helping in the barn and caring for their younger siblings, plus school.
"I don’t look at it as hard work," says Audrey, "but rather as living our dream. I look at it as teaching our children responsibility and teamwork." The older boys, she says, get paid $10 an hour for their work in the barn. Half of their earnings go to their savings account, the other half for discretionary funds. Ric, Ham and Arnold have each bought their own snowmobiles and four-wheelers from these funds.
Jeff and his boys tried to live with Christie’s constant complaints about rising so early in the morning and sweeping cow dung, while Audrey tried to enjoy her breakfast in bed and simple schedule of driving the Bakers’ three young girls to school and to the parlor for their regular manicure, hair and tanning sessions. "It was absolutely boring," says Audrey. "I have never worked so hard in my life," groans Christie.
On the second week, when Christie and Audrey take charge and lay down their own set of rules and run the household their own way, the results make for a significant cultural and societal study of families differentiated by work economics and upbringing values. Christie forbids the children from rising early and helping their father in the hard work on the farm, while Audrey teaches the Baker girls to do work around the house and take the bus to school, never mind the tanning sessions.
Christie says that every child deserves to enjoy their childhood, free of heavy chores and responsibility. Audrey thinks there’s more to life than going to the parlor.
When Audrey, Christie and their husbands first met face-to-face after the show, sparks flew. Audrey resented Christie’s turned-up-nose remarks about Audrey’s house needing fumigation and the way Audrey works her children so hard. Christie had driven Jeff Donahoe to tears at one point–saying he missed his wife–and Christie, as tactless as ever, joked "did they pay you to cry in front of the camera?"
But she admits that in this brief show there are lifelong lessons to be learned. "It made me realize that people live their lives differently from everyone else. The most important thing is to be happy with what you are and have." She also commends the Donahoes for doing "a great job with their kids" and for being "such loving persons."
Audrey genuinely feels the Baker girls are "fantastic". What warmed Audrey’s heart was when the Baker girls told her in a bold statement that they wished she was their mom. Christie toasts Audrey for likewise doing "a good job with her kids" and being "a loving person," but there was no indication Audrey had weaned them away from their regular trips to the salon.
After the show, both wives have come, as Audrey says, to "better appreciate what you have" and to "incorporate changes to make life better." That’s more than you can hope to happen in an hour’s reality show.
Wife Swap airs on the Hallmark Channel every Friday, 10:30 p.m. Hallmark Channel is available on Sky Cable and all Cable Boss affiliates.