Dateline February 2005 (before the show) Why Wife Swap? ABC Television initially approached my family about appearing in a documentary about Peace families/War families. I am a birthright Quaker, with Jewish Socialist grandparents who spent 75 years on the pacifist path, and Greg comes from a Catholic worker family much in the spirit of Dorothy Day, and this was just the type of thing ABC was looking for. The wanted to pair us up with a military family, but soon we realized they actually wanted us for a reality TV show which is funny, cuz we don't even watch TV -- It's called Wife Swap, a sleezy name, but a good premise. The premise is that two women with very different lives swap places for 10 days (sex is not involved.) They see what they can learn from their new family and what they can bring to their new family. Obviously, dealing with network television is a risky thing. We didn't know how they would spin the story nor did we have any artistic control over the outcome. After meeting with the producers and directors (who are British) we were convinced that they actually want our viewpoint to air on TV. Pacifists don't often get this opportunity and although it is a risk, I felt that in the spirit of all the great pacifist risk-takers it is a risk that we should take. The director and camera crew filmed the peace vigil at the Lake St. Bridge twice in December and it is likely that the vigil will appear on National TV with 11 to 20 million viewers. We want the world to get a taste of the pacifist/ Minnesotan life we so cherish. The more I worked with the Wife Swap crew, the more I realized that everything in the show is staged. It's based roughly on my life with my husband and children, but it's a super-sized version of me. It's like a year of activities crammed into a week. So my view was that if we didn't stage this Peace vigil ourselves, ABC will stage something much less authentic. The Twin Cities Friends Meeting house was filmed from the outside, and we actually had a spontaneous Quaker meeting in Louisville at the Peace Vigil I organized down there (a stone's throw from Fort Knox.) At the Louisville vigil, I spoke about what it means to be a conscientious objector, and my host, Ryan, spoke about the hardships military families face while family members are serving in wartime. We made a Peace Truck art car and had a parade, and made lots of art. Greg and my boys hosted Cheri in the Twin Cities, and she went to a peace rally and met anti-Bush, anti-war activists too. (including Vets for Peace.) Dateline June 2005 (after the show)- So much interesting footage was cut from the show – as is to be expected. And life has calmed down considerably. There have been changes in the Leierwood family – although our essential values remain the same. Wife Swap has its spin and although overall I was satisfied with the end product, there were some misrepresentations which I point out. Our family is not agnostic or atheist, we are Quakers (see QUAKERISM section.) It is not a crime to be an atheist, and it is good for our democracy to be able to debate issues in a civil way. My son Dan does question everything, including our religious views, and I believe that is his right. Another misrepresentation was at the Peace Vigil in Louisville, conservative neighbors were not the only ones present. Two articulate VETERANS for PEACE were there, Prof. Robert Topmiller and his wife, and they added tremendously to the depth of the discussion. In case you are wondering about PERSONAL CHANGES, there have been some. Dan has moved out and is living with family friends. He is playing lots of music and traveling a lot. This makes our household more peaceful, but more boring as well. Greg, Avram and I continue on with work, school, art and life. I think I clean our house a little better. Greg was already an avid bicyclist, but I am becoming one as well (see ART CARS & BIKES section.) I write occasionally to the Patricks, and hold her boys in my heart especially. No big reunions are planned. Essentially our family's values remain the same – we are the Doves from the Blue State, and they are the Hawks from the Red State. Yet everything isn’t so black and white. Traveling and meeting new people always changes us, if we keep our minds and hearts open. A conversation I had with Tyler – Cheri’s eldest – about the picture of the bomber plane he had drawn – stays with me. This complete conversation was not on film. I asked where the bomb was dropping, and he said, “on the bad guys.” “But what if it hits some kids instead? There are kids there too.” Tyler thought about this. Later he told me “I figured out about the bad guys. They’re just like us but we haven’t met them yet.” If all children were encouraged to travel, to meet people different than themselves and to make their own opinions, we would transform the world. If you are interested in getting a DVD copy of the Leierwood-Patrick Wife Swap show, contact me: mina@leierwood.com