Survivor: Parental

While tending to one of my parental duties tonight, I thought back to tonight’s episode of Survivor: Palau and put it into the context of the last 24 hours of my life.

So as I wash washing my one year old’s dirty nappies which had accumulated of the past 5 or so days, scrubbing them clean of the poo riddled with undigested corn and grain from the stupid multigrain bread my wife insists on feeding the kids (word of advice – hold off the multigrain until the kids are toilet-trained), I’m thinking “This is worse than any immunity challenge on Survivor. I could almost fill a whole show with parental chores that millions of us do every day which would make those guys and girls on Survivor run screaming”.

Based on the chores I’ve done in the past day, I came up with a handful of Reward and/or Immunity Challenges.

Nappy Wash: You have to rinse, scrub, soak and wash a bucket full of your one year old’s dirty nappies which have accumulated over the past 5-7 days. You’ll have to battle the stench or urine and faeces, and the ammonium like sting the stale urine delivers to your eyes. If your able to wash these nappies without any of them not needing a rewash, you’ll win immunity… immunity from having to rewash the same nappy any more than you have to. This challenge would eliminate any non-parents, most first time fathers and some first time mothers purely on the smell factor. Those fathers that can handle the smell would surely be knocked out on the no-rewash condition. I dried reached every time I had to change a dirty nappy with my eldest, and am only now going a wash or two without needing to resoak at least one nappy.

Vomit Cleanup: You have to cleanup after your 4 year throws up in bed… twice, cleaning him up and changing the bedding while trying not to disturb his one year old sister who’s sleeping in the same room and trying not to throw up yourself. Should you succeed, you’re reward is keeping down dinner and not having to try to settle a screaming one year old in the middle of the night.

These are just two of the types challenges that parents are required to face on a day-to-day basis, and they’re just what I experience in the last 24 hours. I’m sure I could get together enough material to fill an entire series… the problem however might be getting people willing to do it for money… we’re all too busy just doing it because we have to.