Insight from the gutter

I hate to admit it, but aside from the Simpsons, the best shows on TV are reality shows. Though frequently in the gutter, this genre often provides insight into human behavior. Take Trading Spouses. In this show, two mothers trade places. This week's episodes find a wealthy suburban   family swapping mothers with a poor black, apparently inner-city, family.  The rich mother proves to be a limousine liberal.  She condescendingly notes that she has friends of all races. She  ridiculously tutors an overweight black teen on how to convert to a low-carb diet. She seems incapable of understanding that dinner means something other than takeout.  And she treats a black youth as a servant to her hairstyle -  requesting that he wait in the closet and constantly reset the circuit breaker as she blow-dries her fake blonde hair. All-in-all, she serves as a perfect illustration of why rich people should quit pretending they know what being poor is about.

The black mother's upscale experience proves equally illuminating.  Though obviously awestruck by the wealth she is living with, she seems more interested in relationships. She converses with the daughter comparing her experiences with her own daughter's.  She takes a liking to the 72 year old mother who lives with her host family. Tellingly, at the family's lake house, she and the mother discuss her new family's wealth. The mother notes that her grandchildren have always been rich and could not stand being poor. The transplanted mother agrees, noting that it's easy to go from poor to rich, but impossible to make the reverse trip.  

Together these transplanted spouses teach us an invaluable lesson - material  wealth often coexists with spiritual poverty. Absent her luxurious surroundings, the rich mother can do little but complain. Nothing could more fully illuminate the futility of basing one's life on the accumulation of goods.   Similarly, the poor woman's focus on building a relationship with her new family illustrates that wealth need not be an obstacle to happiness.  Most telling is the ending.  Upon returning home, the wealthy woman reflects on the hardship she faced - little is said of the people she just spent a week with.  The poor woman takes the opposite approach.  Spending a week surrounded by unimaginable wealth, she comments only upon the relational experience.  Surely we can all learn a lesson from this.