I want an umpa lumpa NOW daddy!!

I think most of us can agree that "reality" TV is a scourge upon our airwaves, with its contrived scenarios and crass drama based on the mixing of carefully selected bags of neurosis and emotional instabilities. There's little that is real about it, or perhaps what is truly scary is that in reality that is what we truly have become. I'd like to not believe that last though, so I avoid Unreality TV like the black death.

That being said, I have a confession. I have a guilty pleasure and I'm not ashamed to admit it (well, a little ashamed...). There is a subgenre of reality TV shows that I adore, that I seek out when I have the time and inclination, that I sit giddily to watch, not moving from the comfort of my couch for anything short of fire or Jake Gyllenhaal at my door.

I can't get enough "Supper Nanny" and "Nanny 911".

But let me tell you why.

As I have said before, I teach the music to the kids, in the form of private piano and clarinet lessons. I see about 45 of them each week, my youngest being 5 years old, through high school age, and a few adult students. I have a vested interest in their abilities to pay attention, to behave, to be intelligent and respectful little humans, and they are so very very often deeply lacking in all of these things. I find myself, at the ripe old age of 27 often saying to myself, and to others, "Kids these days...." It's sad, it makes me feel like a crotchety 80 year old.

But I implore you to watch a few episodes of one of these Nanny shows (either will do, they're nearly identical) and you may be singing the same tune. On one recent episode we all got to witness the kids of one family scream at, bite and then spit on(!) their mother as she tried to discipline them for their ridiculous behavior. The look on the Nanny 911's face was priceless; abject horror.

The Nannies stay for one week, trying to get the family back into shape, a feat which in the first 10 minutes of the show seems will certainly require divine intervention, or kiddy electro shock therapy. But the Nannies weave their magic of set boundaries, consistent discipline, and parent/child communication and always by the end of the week the kids have morphed from rabid pack animals out for blood and candy, to loving, respectful little human creatures. It's a sight to see, and it makes me want to hire one of these chicks to follow me around to my lessons for 2-3 weeks.

But I have made an error. So far I have made it seem as though "kids these days" are somehow flawed, that something has changed and the kiddies being squeezed out pop into this world in some way broken and incapable of paying attention or behaving. This is not the case. Kids are generally as they have always been, 90% a clean slate for their environment to write upon it what it will, 10% genes they can't avoid. That environment consists almost complete of their parents of course, and here we come to the crux of it. The Nannies work with the kids, but they work mostly with the parents. Never have I seen a show where it wasn't quite clear that the problems these kids are having stem directly from something insane the parents are doing, and never have I had a demonic student who didn't have Succubus and Satan for Mommy and Daddy.

I have a devious plan (as I usually do) to fix this crisis of Dirty Devil Children. When I become Commander of All Things, a roll I will assume in a few years I hope, after I pay off my credit cards and do some traveling, representative and informative episodes of Super Nanny 911 will be required viewing for all pregnant people and their partners. For after spawning, there will be troops of Super Nannies to follow up on you, a real 911 Nanny Help Line for you to call, and all through the land there will be happy and respectful children, not spitting and biting hellions. Parents everywhere will grow kids of quality again, like prize heirloom tomatoes, who will cure cancer and run for political office, and usher in a golden age of existence, all because of some English Nannies and their Naughty Circle.

And this music teacher will be a happy, contented man, who can say "Kids these days" with a smile instead of a groan.