November 2, 2009 - 11:33am

Supernanny isn't kidding around

Ok, so I decided to give Supernanny another chance. When the show first began, I used to find British childcare expert Jo Frost a little hard to watch, mainly because of the way she pronounced the words ‘unacceptable’ and ‘toilet.’ Every time those words would leave her lips I’d cringe. But I’m a little more pronunciation-tolerant of her now and she’s grown on me (not literally, that’d be scary and uncomfortable).

I remember when the first version of the show premiered in the UK in the summer of 2004 and the words "Naughty step!" and "Your behavior is very naughty!" became humorous catchphrases. ‘The naughty room’ – the tame, kid’s version of solitary confinement – became a playful joke between bickering couples.

It still tickles me to watch her cliched ‘nanny to the rescue’ arrival in a London-style black taxi carrying a laptop instead of an umbrella. Frost is certainly no Mary Poppins; you don’t see the angelic little darlings supercalafragalistically tidying their toys and dancing in a long line behind her, pigtails swinging. But she definitely has a powerful way with children, and adults too, for that matter. She quietly observes the chaos, does a lot of head shaking and tutting at the camera and then gives the desperate parents a good talking to. She’s a no-nonsense kind of woman and has no problem telling a father that he’s a passive aggressive prick or calling a mother out on her ineffectual mollycoddling. The parents, though obviously having consented to the experiment, seem oddly reluctant to have a stranger (with a camera crew) come into their home and tell them what to do. And predictably, many are demoralized by their failing parenting measures.