Taming of tiny shrews

I am watching “Supernanny” on ABC and telling myself it is research. We have a 5-year-old whose latest hobby seems to be channeling John McEnroe after a questionable line call. (I keep telling her that, even should she become a famous sports star, tantrums are not tolerated so much in women.)

I am watching “Supernanny” even though the dishes are unwashed and my husband is in and out of the family room with various receptacles full of laundry because, as I tell him, our family can use all the advice it can get. We have a 7-year-old who can nail a hook shot from outside the key but is incapable of getting his pajama bottoms from the floor to the hamper or his lunchbox from the car to the kitchen counter.

I am watching “Supernanny,” I tell myself and anyone who will listen, because I want to be a better mother.

Which is, of course, a total lie.

I have seen Supernanny Jo Frost invade four or five households and I know what she’s going to do -- tell the mother she needs to work at her job less, tell the father he needs to help more, tell them both to address their children in low, firm tones while maintaining eye contact, preferably at eye level.

She will establish a schedule that she will post on a wall somewhere (and apparently fax to the woman’s bosses so they will be onboard with her new hours, though this is never quite explained), she will create a “naughty” chair or corner or mat for sobbing timeouts. Frost will make the mother cry at least once while she points out how abysmally out of control the “lovely children” have become, and then she will sit with the parents through at least one long, dark night while they try to establish a regular bedtime.

All of which makes perfect sense and gives one hope and is not in any way the reason I am watching this show.

I am watching “Supernanny” because I want to see children who behave worse than mine. Much, much worse.

Oh, I know a lot of it is done through the magic of Hollywood -- sometimes you can tell by the changes of clothing that what seems like one day of complete and total tantrum was shot over a period of several.

And the people they choose seem to border on the delusional -- even if you believed you could work from home when you have 4-year-old twins, wouldn’t you pony up for a baby-sitter for at least part of the day?

But we all know “reality TV” is a relative term, and the kicking and screaming and crying are certainly real enough and that’s what matters to me. Bring. It. On.

I watch and I feel better, about myself, my husband (who, unlike most of the husbands on the show, is capable of a polysyllabic conversation) and my children. Yes, they are occasionally unruly in the grocery store, but neither of them has ever intentionally socked me in the eye or told me to “back off NOW”; yes, they whine when it’s bedtime and ask us to lie with them but they’re asleep within 10 minutes, not cartwheeling around their room until midnight.

I watch the “Supernanny” mothers behave even more inconsistently than I do, break down even more dramatically than I have, and it makes me feel both euphoric and slightly dirty. Because while it is wrong for a person to isolate when in fear or frustration or despair, there is no reason In The World that I should know these things about these people.

Outrageous, we say, shaking our heads. Those poor people, we say, but secretly we’re delighted. Those are not our children, that is not our house, things in our family are not nearly so bad.

We will remember this the next time our child dumps out the salt on the restaurant table or whacks his sister for no apparent reason. “Still not at “Supernanny” level,” we will tell ourselves, and it will help.

Though the naughty corner sounds like a pretty good idea.