Crash Test Mommy

- Season 4

(2008)

Tara Swim was neglected as a child and vowed she'd do better for her own two daughters, Tiana, 7, and Kiyra, 2. If she could give it, they would get all her love and attention 24/7, declares Tara. But she worries about her longtime best friend, Amanda Barton, who is considering starting her own family soon. Amanda had an English upbringing - all stiff upper lip and little outward emotion. As Amanda embarks on a 48-hour adventure as Crash Test Mommy to Tara's girls, Mom wonders if her friend will be able to show the love, affection and warmth she thinks are so ...

Jennifer Laforet just wants a little respect from her old style male chauvinist husband, husband, Joel. The busy mother of two young children, Kalub, 5, and Lavender, 4, juggles full-time parenting with running a yoga business, where she teaches 8-10 classes a week. Joel, however, is never satisfied with the job she does as a mom, and is full of criticism about her supposed shortcomings and a ton of advice on how she could improve. He believes that, compared to his own job as a construction foreman, this parenting business is a breeze. But Joel's high expectations are...

Corinne Burgess is a desperate housewife nearing her breaking point. With four kids ranging in age from 12 to 3, two dogs, and a cat, her life is in overdrive. Yet her carpenter husband, Chris, seems oddly uninvolved in his family's affairs, leaving everything for Corinne to do unless she nags him to death. Chris is a traditionalist, who believes the man brings home the bacon while leaving the parenting to the woman. As a result, Corinne often feels like a single mom. She's just about had it up to here and is ready to show Chris the door unless he sees the light, ...

Karen Jorgenson is a former recruiting executive who gave up her decade-long corporate career a year ago to be a full-time stay-at-home mom to her three young children, Ethan, 7, Claire, 5, and Rachel, 3. Her lifelong bachelor brother, Mark Thompson, still lives in that career world, where he's a criminal and immigration lawyer, and Karen's life change has created a chasm between brother and sister. Mark thinks his sister left her common sense back in the boardroom and that her life is actually pretty easy: all the kids need is a little law and order. As Mark begins ...

Trina Allen is the fun aunt to her sister Sherri's two hyperactive sons, Tristin, 6, and Darian, 5. Sherri's learned to pick her battles with "the little hellions", but Trina just thinks Sherri is way too soft on them. She's full of suggestions regarding proper parenting and is certain she could do better. As Crash Test Mommy Trina's going to get her chance to practice what she preaches, but the stakes go way higher than that. Three years ago, Sherri was diagnosed with the debilitating disease Multiple Sclerosis. Despite being close sisters who talk daily and see each...

Twenty-seven year-old former model Shanna Blanchard is exhausted and worried. Exhausted from doing nearly all the parenting of her three kids, two by a former marriage and one by her twenty-six year-old fiancé Adam Billingsley; and worried because she's pregnant with a fourth child and doesn't think she can cope with both the kids and the new baby unless Adam gets more involved in helping out with the parenting responsibilities. Frustrated from numerous fruitless discussions with him about helping out at home, and desperate, she's drawn a line in the sand. Removing ...

Coralee Hewlett and her big sister Jodi Adrian are polar opposites who have been growing even further apart for some time. Neither can relate to the other's lifestyle - something they'd like to change. Caring for her four small children twenty-four hours a day is exhausting and stressful, but Jodi also finds it hugely fulfilling. She wishes her sister Coralee would respect how tough it is to be mom to four little ones but also see how rewarding it is. But Coralee, a childless, single businesswoman who is able to indulge herself and her own interests, feels her big ...

Joann Narin confesses she has her hands full parenting her three active young children: Joshua, 5, Allysa, 3, and baby Aleana, 4 months. She'd like her big sister Christy Lokan's support, and a little respect for the job she does on the home front. But Christie, a single mother with one pre-adolescent child, thinks Joann is a whiner and constantly criticizes her little sister for not doing things better...that is, Christie's way. Older is wiser, says Christie: she did the parenting thing first, so why can't Joann just imitate her methods? As she takes over as crash ...

Kathleen McKamey's life is chaos. Holding down a part-time job, while parenting three active boys ranging in age from six to twelve, will do that to you. And especially when her husband, Dustin, is more like a fourth child than a partner sharing the parenting responsibilities. Kathleen desperately needs Dustin to turn off the video games when he gets home from his long hours working on a tugboat to lend her a hand with the chores and spend more quality time with his boys. The future of their marriage and of their family depends on Dustin understanding this and ...

Dean Clark can't understand why wife Erin can't maintain a spotless house and have the family dinner on the table when he gets home every day at 5:30 p.m. After all, the wives of all the other guys he works with at the auto-body shop have their husbands' meal on the table ready for them, just like Dean's mom used to do. Erin is frustrated with Dean's archaic expectations for a wife and that he doesn't realize how much work is involved looking after five kids all day; their own two young children plus the three other little ones she cares for as part of her home ...

Ruby Marin knows now that she had kids too young. A teen rebel, pregnant at 18, Ruby now finds herself, at 22, a single mom with a son, Dylan 4, and a daughter, Kelly, 3. Ruby is often overwhelmed by the responsibility of parenting Dylan and Kelly entirely on her own. It doesn't help that her big sister Ivania's idea of help is to constantly be on Ruby's case for her perceived shortcomings as a mom. Ivania, a successful legal aide, feels Ruby is underachieving: too easily giving up on training her kids and not showing enough patience or persistence. Why, for instance,...

Single mom Lydia Nordin has her hands full. Along with her job, she's the sole caregiver for two young children, who are hearing and visually challenged. Altogether, the responsibility and pressure of Lydia's situation occasionally overwhelms her. Meanwhile, Lydia's young sister, Rachel Nathe, lives right downstairs in the basement of Lydia's home but, rather than helping Lydia out, merely complains about the noise the kids make. The rebellious, fashion forward Rachel, a buff motorcycle-riding fitness freak and aspiring actress, finds the kids irritating and doesn't ...

Jennifer Anderson loves her busy life with her four lively children, all under the age of seven. For 'Jen', it's noisy, hectic and unpredictable, but also fun-filled and exciting. Too noisy and too hectic, according to her more sedate, older sister, Michelle Wood, herself the mother of one well-behaved 15 year-old daughter. Michelle holds to the traditional 'children should be seen and not heard' school of parenting. She thinks that if Jen only emulated her über-organized big sis, the four little animals in the Anderson zoo would get tamed, leaving more 'me' time for ...