Just s a coin has two sides, the subject of in-laws is two-sided, depending on how you look at it. On the one hand they are an extension of your loved ones, and if you loved her or him enough to marry them, then their family are part of the deal.
That said, there isn’t much that can be done about their personalities and in some cases you will have bad experiences with them. The trickiest relationship has to be the one between mother and daughter-in-law.
It can get so bad that in the recent times some people have even coined the term “monster-in- law” to describe the love-hate relationship they have.
Seeing this as an opportunity for a TV show, MTV has come up with Sleeping With Family in which they enforce Big Brother-like conditions on people who are unlikely to get along.
A person participating in this show is asked to live with their in-laws in their house, or vice versa, for a week. It will be a classic case of “my house, my rules” and we will see if the parties involved are humble enough to respect each others’ space.
The main reason why in-laws rarely get along is because the parents usually have an idea of who they want their child to end up with.
While that is done out of love, they forget that their offspring have minds of their own which gives them the right to choose whomever they want to be with.
When that chosen person does not fit the parents’ expectations, we have tension developing and terms such as “monster-in-law” come up.
This is what MTV is hoping to tap into and like George Orwell’s Big Brother concept in his novel 1984, we zoom in on the housed subjects to see how they get along.
Most of the arguments or drama that is hoped for, is based on the “my house my rules” principle. There are people who will most probably abuse the rule and then the sparks will fly.
Not a bad TV idea at all.
• Sleeping with the Family airs every Wednesday night on MTV (DStv channel 130) at 8.30m.