The first thing you should know about me (before less important things like where I live or that a toddler is currently screaming in the next room) is that I love The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.
I might have even watched both seasons of Bachelor Pad, but I’m not fully admitting to anything.
It doesn’t matter how godawful the man/woman of the hour is, they all win me over with time. Even Jake, whom I thought was a total psycho on Jillian’s season, won me over as the most earnestly genuine person on earth, once he became The Bachelor.
Of course, my opinion reverted back to total psycho during the “After the Final Rose” interview with Vienna… but I don’t like to talk about such things.
This current season, I’ve been totally fascinated with Emily, the human Barbie Doll, for three reasons:
1) I believe Emily is the first Bachelorette that has not won her spot by being rejected. In fact, I believe Emily has probably never been rejected in her life. Yes, she has suffered a terrible heartbreak (I can think of few stories sadder than losing your husband in a plane crash and then finding out you are pregnant with his child days later) but I would bet my house that she has never been outright rejected. (Note: I don’t own a house.)
There is no doubt in Emily’s mind that these men all want to end up with her and there is no doubt in the viewer’s mind either, which makes this season seem slightly more “real” than the others.
2) Surprisingly, Emily is pretty smart. She seems to be making good, swift decisions with the guys and has participated in conversations that sound somewhat like how people talk in real life (i.e. I haven’t heard her utter the words “my journey” even once).
3) Emily is a mother, which she seems to be getting attacked for relentlessly by the tabloids.
According to the gossip rags, Emily is totally exploiting her daughter, Ricki, for fame and fortune, and Ricki’s grandparents are very unhappy. A few weeks ago, I even saw the fact that The Bachelorette has a child in the “Lowbrow/Despicable” quadrant in New York Magazine‘s usually spot-on ‘Approval Matrix’.
But I ask you this— don’t mothers have the same right to set aside their lives for the small possibility of finding love under cheesy televised circumstances as everybody else?
Don’t mothers deserve to take a date on a helicopter to a private island where hot tubs grow like coconut trees, just like the rest of the dating pool?
Don’t mothers have to kiss six, seven, maybe 25 men in the span of one group date to find the one that doesn’t make her nauseous, just like regular childless people?
And didn’t past Bachelor, Jason Mesnick (please shoot me for remembering his full name without having to google it) have a young son? Did anyone say one word about him ditching his parental duties to sleep with women he could never get in real life?
I believe Jason was the primary caregiver, too.
As idiotic as The Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise is (and I can admit it’s idiotic even though I love it), I don’t think it’s exactly fair to come down on a mother for being on the show.
Mothers are allowed to live their own lives and make choices that benefit themselves, whether it be for their careers or their hobbies or their need to take three to four men to “the fantasy suite”.
(Ricki— they just take bubble baths while wearing their bathing suits in there, okay?)
Emily is making this show a ton more interesting than previous seasons because she can easily see who is not ready for a serious relationship BECAUSE SHE HAS A DAUGHTER. She is judging the guys not only on whether they are ready for marriage, but on whether they are ready for fatherhood.
On her first one-on-one date, she took Ryan (so yummy, but such a tool) to make chocolate chip cookies in her kitchen and deliver them to her daughter’s soccer practice. She wanted to make sure that Ryan realized how extraordinarily lame a parent’s life is most of the time.
So let her have her candlelit dinners and helicopter rides and fantasy suites. I can guarantee that a mom will appreciate them more than anyone else.
About Ilana
