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February 5, 2007: Starling / Sweany-Ernst
I’ll be the first to say it: I don’t know much at all about nature worship. I try to keep an open mind about things. If someone wants to worship a tree, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I’ll try to figure it out, yes, but sometimes you just have to give up and let people be. The Sweaney-Ernst family is one of those families I could easily roll my eyes at for their oddness.
I could react like Stephanie Starling did to the idea of a fairy tree and talking to vegetables — she burst out laughing and started instantly mocking them. But I’d rather just look at them as people who have a strange devotion to nature. I wouldn’t call it a hobby because it means more to them than just a hobby. I wouldn’t say that I’d join them in their rituals, but I think it’s an interesting way to bring a family together.
I don’t agree with what seemed like Carol and Laura’s push to have their kids just as devoted to nature as they are. What really bothered me was the fact that the parents needed separate bedrooms in order to discover themselves. As parents, they’re supposed to allow their kids to discover their individuality. But instead of doing that, they just pushed them into nature worship, squeezed them into one tiny bedroom and ignored anything that could become an interest outside of nature worship. I understand that they considered it a religion and that religion is a personal thing, but they weren’t allowing their kids to grow up. The oldest, the long-haired Sterling, said that he wanted to get out into the real world, but it was hard. Of course it was hard: His parents didn’t let him explore other things. They had their own rooms and stayed there while their kids did the chores. Free time seemed to be spent in the garden or with the fairy tree or doing rituals or doing their homework.
Laura Sweaney-Ernst thought that team sports were evil. She got all emotional watching Justin Starling in the motocross race because they were desecrating the earth. She didn’t want to teach her kids to be aggressive and become obsessed with winning, but I don’t know if what she was doing — ingratiating her kids into her form of worship — was a more liberal way of being.
And then there were the Starlings, a family that lives on their son Justin’s dream of being a motocross champion. Their father, John, reminded me of Will Ferrell’s speed-obsessed race-car diver in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. John was enthusiastic about the Starling mantra, saying that they lived big and dreamed big. He boasted about living the American dream because he had lots of money and a nice house.
But focusing on Justin’s motocross without encouraging outside interests, specifically his educational pursuits, will probably be a bad thing. Justin himself said he didn’t need education and he just wanted to be a motocross champion. Someone needs to show him that education’s important, especially if he keeps getting into accidents that leave him so bruised. He may, god forbid, get into an accident that leaves him permanently out of the motocross world, and then what will he do? But what could be expected of Justin when his parents were so singularly gung ho about him following his athletic dreams?
Justin’s father, John, wasn’t a model of mature behavior. He acted like a child sometimes, initially when he embarrassed Laura in front of his friends at a party and then when he and Justin walked away from Laura’s lecture about digging through trash and abandoned Samantha and her interest in photography. They paid her back in the end when Laura organized a photography exhibition for Samantha. John finally realized that they were focusing too much on Justin and not enough on Samantha.
At the table meeting, there was a lot of screaming. (Although surprisingly not from Carol Ernst, who admitted to having an anger problem that he had managed to control after many years. Who knew the quiet, submissive, tree-hugging Carol Ernst was hiding a secret rage problem?) Both sides had legitimate points. The Starlings needed to focus more on Samantha and less on motocross, and Laura needed to loosen up the reins and let her kids just be kids, which could mean letting her boys shoot some hoops every now and then.
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Feb 5, 2007 11:06 PM
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Sorry, but being a former roommate of the Sweaney-Ernst family I can say that a great deal of this was HOLLYWOOD. One big fact that was left out was that Carol and Laura have separate bedrooms because they aren't intimate and haven't been for awhile...in fact they each have their own partners outside the "Sweaney-Ernst" home. I did find it disturbing that several of the available rooms in the house (ie, the room they use for "massage") wasn't given to Sterling when their roommates moved out. Carol does not have any secret rage problem but I can attest to the fact that Laura definitely does and it's no secret!!! I always felt a great deal of empathy for Sterling, Dane and Cameron because they are truly amazing kids who should be allowed to follow their own dreams.
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Feb 14, 2007 5:26 PM
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I know the Starling Family. That isn't how they are at all. Obviously the show is very scripted - VERY. They have to be the most loving, giving, kindest family I've ever known. Justin is awesome and so is Samantha.
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Jul 17, 2007 10:44 AM
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