ABC Family - Entertaining Us With Lies

Kayla and I were looking through the TV grid and she asked me if I ever watched a program “Switched at Birth” – as I had missed out on the pilot, I didn’t fully understand what was going on nor understood how all of the characters involved were connected.

It wasn’t until just recently that I was able to back up to the beginning and felt sucked into certain characters even though I was unbelievably shaking my head more with each episode as the parents lied to their kids, and the kids lie to the parents, and the parents just don’t understand why their children would lie.

They have lied to spare hurt feelings – they say they are protecting the victim – whom becomes more of a victim because they had not been confronted with the truth to begin with. 

Only one character who has lied has actually felt guilty about it and does not seem to have a place within her to deceit – and yet as she finds herself around it day after day at home, at school, at work . . . the lying seems to come easier for her and perhaps any remorse she may have felt when the first lies were told will become a thing of the past.

And somehow I’m intrigued to keep on watching – hoping someday the cast members may be able to figure it out – that one day they will be able to look in the mirror and see their own errors before making judgement calls.  And I continue to ask myself: “Why am I watching this?”

I like the show “Bunheads” but even that has its share of lies and deceit – usually in order to “protect another” but there is one character that lies to all people, mom, dad, friends and has been doing it for so long that she has absolutely no conscience for anything that she does that isn’t honest.

Some other series that abc Family has to offer are “The Secret Life of An American Teenager” and “Pretty Little Liars” which also introduce us to more lies and deceit (though I have not actually watched either one – advertisements and title tell me) And now they've got another one called "The Lying Game" What happened to the wholesomeness and values that we would each like to incorporate into our family values?  Or at least I’m assuming we do.

I am grateful for the Disney movies that can often be seen on abc family (though we don’t actually get that station anymore but some other people do) because if it was just the series that they’ve been spinning out, it’s not the family station I want to represent family values.  Not my family anyway. 

Perhaps abc stands for Absolute Beguiled Craftiness . . .