Love, art and ‘Wife Swap’

Damascus couple swaps partners for reality television show

By KIMBERLY M. WEYANDT

DAMASCUS, PA — What would it be like to leave your house, your family and your life for two weeks and “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes?” Ramona Jan, a resident of Damascus, stepped up to the challenge when ABC-TV asked her to participate in its reality television show, “Wife Swap.”

An RDF Media production, each week “Wife Swap” picks two families with very different values and swaps the wives. Picked up via limo, each woman is transported to her new home, husband, children and life. For the first week, each wife fills the shoes of the woman she has replaced, taking over her everyday activities and living by her rules. The second week, the wives give their new families some rules of their own.

Jan, a 48-year-old free-spirited artist, lives in Damascus with her husband, Andre Turan, a 38-year-old fitness trainer and their daughter, 10-year-old Lucy. Jan is described by “Wife Swap” as a “mom who shuns makeup and believes the real key to beauty lies within.”

She loves to paint and shops at thrift stores. In her home, competition and television are banned. Lucy is encouraged to pursue music, puppets, writing, dancing and being her own person. When Lucy made the decision to quit school at age nine and be home-schooled by a tutor, her family supported her decision. The family focuses on living creative, healthy lives and eating only organic meals, prepared from scratch. Turan does most of the chores in the family’s cluttered house.

The couple agrees that their relationship is “terrible.”

Jan and Turan met while he was pursuing a music career. When Turan began pursing her, Jan told him she was tired of dating.

“I said either let’s get married or let’s just be friends,” said Jan.

“So I was like, ok… let’s get married,” Turan said.

After five weeks of dating, the two were married in a civil service wedding. They lived together in a tiny apartment until Jan became pregnant. And then everything changed.

“I had to change everything,” said Turan. “I had to change careers, I had to figure out how to make more and more money every year, we had to get a house,” he said.

“And then it was hell,” said Jan. “Hell, hell, hell, like unbelievable hell.”

Dealing with the pressures of parenthood, professions and relationships was hard, especially considering they had known each other for such a short time. But they stuck it out. Twelve years later they continue to work at their relationship every day.

“I think that people get in relationships, and it’s just so easy to get a divorce,” said Turan. “I have this philosophy on relationships… if we can’t make it work then there is no hope for humanity... We are the microcosim of the macrocosim.”

“If we can’t make it work, then all of the world is doomed,” Jan said with a laugh.

And then, one ordinary day, Jan received an email asking her if she would like to participate in “Wife Swap;” an opportunity to see if the grass is greener on the other side.

On the day of the swap, she packed her bag and was met by a limo. After hours in the car, she found herself in Kentucky, swapped with Kimberly Yonts, a 29-year-old stay-at-home mom who devotes her time to helping her five-year-old daughter Hannah participate in child beauty pageants. Her new husband, 29-year-old Michael, works at a local aluminum mill, and the youngest daughter, three-year-old Maddie, stays home.

Walking in Yants’ shoes, Jan is forced to wear makeup, fix her hair every day and do all of the housework. Dinners consist of fast food and microwave meals eaten in front of the television. Before leaving the house, Jan must fix everyone’s hair and dress them all in matching outfits. She also must help Hannah prepare for her next beauty competition. Hannah has won dozens of crowns and trophies in the more than 60 pageants since she was three months old. In order to be ready for her competition, her costume must be made, her hair lacquered, her tanning cream and makeup applied.

In Jan’s shoes, Yants is not allowed to comb her hair or wear makeup. She can’t help Turan do the housework and she must eat healthy food.

Both women struggle trying to live under the rules of the other women. By the second week they both have a list of rules for their new families to follow.

In the Yants home, Jan bans television, matching outfits, pageants and junk food. The children will now spend their time making art. Michael Yants will not expect Jan to clean anything. He can either leave it or clean it himself. In the Turan home, Yants has decided that Lucy is Jan’s parrot. For the next week, Lucy will be allowed to experience everything that she has not been exposed to, including shopping sprees, junk food, beauty pageants and satellite television.

At the end of the swap, the families met face to face for the first time. Across the table from each other, they talked about what they will take away from the experience.

Michael Yants said that he understood that he didn’t have to eat vegetables, but by not eating them he was setting a poor example for his children. The Yants family gave up the pageants, took the stage out of the playroom and spend more time exercising.

Turan said that he ultimately knew that Lucy would make the right decisions for herself and that he wanted to know what she wanted. If Lucy wanted junk food, he said he’d like to know.

Jan said she would not be taking anything away from her experience with the way the Yants family lives. Seeing the Yants hugging and kissing, Jan broke down, realizing that she and Turan did not have a relationship like that.

Since the episode, Turan and Jan have produced a song about the experience, which they sing together. Jan is working on creating a spin off called “Making it” and the couple continues to work on their personal relationship.

“We love each other and we hate each other at the same time,” said Turan, “But it’s like that in all good relationships.”

“It’s like art,” he said.