Mother Funders: Nothing Like the Real Thing
Most reality shows are built upon competition and conflict. Successful parent groups, however, are not. Last night’s episode of the Bravo reality show Mother Funders, which follows a Georgia PTO, provided all the infighting you’d expect from the Real Housewives of Atlanta and very little that resembled actual PTO work.
That’s the main complaint we hear about the show from our readers: It paints parent groups in a bad light.
Here’s a brief rundown of things that happened on last night’s show that are not a realistic depiction of the parent groups we know.
- Volunteer Amber C. was thrown out of a meeting, then the vice president walked out in protest. In real life, we’re thrilled to have volunteers show up, and no one leaves a meeting that fast unless they get an urgent text from their child.
- The board voted to remove volunteer coordinator Robin from probation. PTO probation is a clever plot device, but we’ve never heard of it happening in real life.
- President Carla required the leaders to complete a self-evaluation and to videotape their responses. That works great for reality TV, but in real life, you can’t go around treating volunteers like they’re your employees.
- Although Robin is off probation, she and Carla continue to butt heads at the next meeting. Sure, disagreements among PTO leaders happen sometimes. But really, we’re all too busy taking care of business to make a scene like these two women do.
Toward the end of the episode, board member Amber B. asks the question that has been on my mind each time I’ve watched the show. “Why is it that we can never just have a simple meeting? Here we are, back to the Robin and Carla show.” That’s a formula for reality TV success, but not for a successful PTO.
