Tonight on ABC Wife Swap returns again for a whole new episode. On tonight’s show April Markiewicz, a lenient and permissive mom, and Yelena Zusin, a Russian “Tiger Mom,” swap lives for two weeks. Did you watch last week’s episode when Marie DiBella and Comedian Carol LaRosh swapped lives? We did and we recapped it here for you.
April Markiewicz lives in Covington, LA with her husband, Mark, and 15-year-old son Alex, who has no respect for authority and is used to a complete lack of structure or discipline at home. Alex’s favorite activity is playing games from his extensive video game library for hours on end, which April and Mark allow. Mark is a stay-at-home dad who is responsible for the cooking, cleaning and management of the home. He’s eccentric and likes to spend his free time restoring old payphones and going over his Disney memorabilia collection. He can also often be seen in the neighborhood wearing only a towel as his clothing of choice
Yelena Zusin is a Russian “Tiger Mom” from Pelham Manor, NY. She and her husband, Oleg, have three children, 9-year-old Aiden and 8-year-old twin girls Elizabeth and Annabelle. Yelena and Oleg feel American parents are too easy on their children, so their children’s days are filled with lots of after-school activities, including figure skating, gymnastics and piano practice. Yelena and Oleg believe their children should be the best in everything they do and never quit.
Looking at their new homes, they each have apprehensions. Sabrina is disgusted by the clutter and the pagan symbols and Karina is having mixed feelings about the competiveness in the household. When they meet the new families, Sabrina immediately needs to be reassured that their paganism is evil or dangerous. On the hand when she tells them about her paganism, Sabrina’s husband doesn’t want it in his house.
Sabrina finds out that Karina’s son was a tap dancer but he dropped out after being teased. The family decides to bring her to welcome ceremony at the pagan temple. Sabrina is uncomfortable. They try to teach her about their religion but she’s not having it.
Karina is shocked to hear Robert screaming and then cursing at his son. Later she’s even more disgusted to see Robert punish his son with what she believes is cruelty. When she talks to little Robert , she finds out he doesn’t have any friends. Things nearly come to a head between the adults. Karina hates having to wake Robert up and cut his food. She’s been giving snide remarks. But it’s when she asks little Robert to put his plate in the sink that she and Robert have a small argument. He’s constantly screaming at her. Especially when she doesn’t cook his breakfast fast enough. When she does finish it; he refuses to eat it because he’s so angry.
It’s rule change day. Karina doesn’t want anymore yelling, she’s going to introduce them to paganism, and Robert has to take care of himself. The breaking point was when Karina aks them to take down the trophies.
Sabrina is making the family give up paganism. She also enlists the eldest back into dance. Sabrina calmly talks with Karina’s husband and finds out that she may have hurt the children’s feelings. She apologizes and everything looks like it’s going to be fine. If only that could be said about the other family.
Robert hates getting up by himself and Karina’s husband, Arana, hates that Sabrina is trying treat him like a child. Sabrina has the boys cleaning up. This especially helps Arana because his wife has always complained about his sloppiness. They went through a rough patch a couple of years ago and managed to stay together if only Arana changed his ways.
When father and son switch in their tap practice, Robert sees how he should be pulling back with the way he treats his son. Over at the Fireheart house, the new bathroom door goes up but the boys aren’t feeling it.
Despite their earlier frustrations and arguments, everyone has taken to the changes well. No one is arguing and everyone did follow the rules. If only they didn’t have to meet at the round table.
Goodwill is gone and Karina tells Sabrina she hated to be her. She didn’t like how she was treated. Robert tries defending himself and yet doesn’t correct his wife from calling him her spoiled baby. Then Karina explains the switching in the dance routine. Robert breaks down in tears as it’s explained how little Robert lost all control. In the end these two couples ended with the most respect for each other and the changes the others made. They actually hugged.
This was the most calmed ending. They actually kept some of the other’s suggestions. I think this maybe one of the few episodes that people learned something.
On next week’s promo, it’s laid back vs. tiger mom. I don’t think they’ll end up saying nice things to each other at that table. Tonight was a one off.