The Modern Mom

THE HEATED RIVALRY OF REALITY TV

Caroline Dettman

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Clock in, moms—our weekly mom coworker chat is back.

This week, Caroline is breaking down the pop culture moments everyone’s talking about right now. From the shocking finale of The Traitors (and the $16K Birkin apology heard around reality TV) to the newly announced cast for the upcoming season of The Bachelorette starring Taylor Frankie Paul.

Plus:

  • The hockey romance drama that the internet convinced me to watch—and why it might be one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen
  • Why moms secretly love escaping into dramatic TV at the end of the day
  • Khloé Kardashian’s comments about having another baby using frozen embryos
  • And the latest Kardashian rumor involving Scott Disick

If you’ve ever wished stay-at-home moms had a Slack channel to chat about the week’s trending topics, this episode is it.

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Find Caroline online:
Instagram: @themodernmompod and @caroline_dettman
Email: carolinethemodernmom@gmail.com

SPEAKER_00

Happy Monday, moms. It is Monday, March 16th. It is the beginning of a new week and we are clocked in and ready for duty. But here's the thing about having a mom job. When I came home from the corporate world and made my new office here at home, what I missed most about my role at work was having people, peers around me all the time. I went from having friends at work and adult conversations to being at home all day with a newborn and a dog. Uh and my husband, who has always been my best friend, suddenly became the only other adult that I spoke to on a regular basis. And while that was fantastic for our relationship, it wasn't the greatest thing for my social battery. I'm kind of neither an introvert nor an extrovert. I like to be introverted, but I also have a part of me that really thrives on having conversations. So I started to view using social media as replicating those personal communications as like a substitute stand-in for conversations. And while that's probably not the most healthy coping mechanism, I was able to parlay that into actual offline relationships as well. So if you are in the thick of motherhood right now, I want you to see this podcast as a conversation with somebody who gets where you are right now today. And while I may not hear you when you're talking back to me in the car or whatever it is that you're doing right now, I want this to feel like our conversation because we are we're friends and we are mom co-workers. So without further ado, these are the hot trending topics that we would be talking about if stay-at-home moms had a Slack channel. Starting it off this week, we have some hot, hot tea about the reality TV show world. Now, the TV show Traders has kind of been taking everybody by surprise. I had never heard of it before this most recent season, but everybody around me was talking about it. So I did what anybody would do and I tuned in to watch. Reality TV shows generally aren't my jam, mostly because I watch 98% of my TV time with my husband, and it's it's a hard sell trying to get him on board with you know a Bravo TV show. But a reality TV show with like a competition component like traders has been really enjoyable for me. And in case you missed it, Rob Rauch, and you have no idea how many times I practiced saying that before coming on the mic just now. Rob Rauch is the winner of this most recent traders season. And with that title comes$220,800 in prize money. Now, in case you haven't watched it, spoiler alert, you can skip forward a few seconds if you haven't yet watched the finale. But I guess I've already spoiled the winner. Sorry. On the show's finale, Rob betrayed fellow contestant Mara, but promised her that he would buy her a Birkin with part of his winnings to make up for it. Rob was able to follow through on that promise. On the March 4th taping of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, the show kicked off with Andy pulling the audience to see who agreed if gifting a Birkin would be enough to earn forgiveness. And 90% of the audience voted that yes, a Birkin would be enough recompense to make up for any and all sins, which technically I agree with, but I'm more of a Kelly girl myself. And Rob put his handling gloves on and grabbed the signature orange Hermes box from behind the set and presented Mara with her Birkin. Now, if you're in the know, this will make sense to you. It is a burgundy Hermes Togo Birkin 30 with gold hardware. And it is estimated that he spent about$16,000 of his winnings on the bag. And if you're not in the know, I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that you're Rory Gilmore, whom when presented with a 35 pink ostrich Birkin just called it a purse. So, well, well, well, a Birkin bag for Mora. Which just goes to show that if there's an opportunity to relate something back to good old Gilmore girls, I'm gonna take it. In other reality competition news, Bachelor Nation Rejoice, ABC has announced the 22 men competing on season 22 of The Bachelorette starring Taylor Frankie Paul. And no, sadly, Dakota is not on the list of contestants. This season kicks off on Sunday, March 22nd, which is 10 days after the season 4 premiere of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Now, if you can't wait all the way until the 22nd, which isn't that cute. Season 22 kicks off on the 22nd. I think that's cute. Having seen the men's cast list, there are some standouts here. First of all, Clayton Johnson. And if that name doesn't ring a bell, I'm with ya. But his ex-fiance, her name might, you know, jog your memory. Uh Lana Del Rey. Clayton and Lana were engaged in 2020 and they broke it off a year later. Now, Lana has, of course, found her own bachelor. She married the airboat tour captain, Jeremy Dufresne, in 2024. Yet it seems Clayton is still on the prowl. Now, I don't know who pull quotes the fun facts about these contestants, but I I guarantee you these are the least interesting fun facts that anybody could ever describe themselves with, and it's the same thing every season. And then they come on the show and they've got actual, you know, interesting anecdotes about themselves, like ABC, why do you do these men like this? Trenton's dream superpower would be talking with dogs. The man is a pro athlete. I'm pretty sure he's got more interesting things about him than the fact that he would like to talk to dogs. Who amongst us wouldn't like to talk to dogs? The most exciting thing about Ron is that he has a nine-month-old beta fish named Finn. You're making Ron sound like a serious snooze fest here, but this one is my favorite. Richard is a photographer from Charleston, South Carolina, and Richard is thankful for Thanksgiving. Just eliminate him right now. Just strike him out. Richard, don't even show up if this is the most interesting thing about you. Dude. Anyways, they aren't all duds, and I'm sure that these men aren't actually duds. ABC's just doing them, doing them dirty here. Knowing what I do know about Taylor Frankie Paul from following her, I know that she wants a partner who's willing to move to Provo, Utah to be with her and her three children. Seeing as she does share custody with their father, she's probably not supposed to like move too far. And she kind of goes back and forth on how much she attends the Mormon church. So she's probably looking for someone who's at least open to becoming a member. So it's really interesting to note that there is a contestant who describes himself as devout Mormon. Aaron is 32. He's from Vineyard, Utah, which I don't seem like it's probably pretty close to Provo. He's a product manager, and he's a devoted member of the Mormon Church. I don't know, TFP. He seems like he could be a front runner, but I think I'm getting the best long-term relationship-y vibes from Lou. Spelled L E W. He's 32 and he's from Salt Lake City. And he's 6'8. And I I think I think Taylor is like five feet. How tall is she? Okay, Google says she's 5'6. So, I mean, that's gonna be kind of pocket-sized next to somebody who's one foot two inches taller than her. I don't know. I feel like she might enjoy that a little bit more than Kevin, who loves to cry while listening to Crash by the Dave Matthews band. Call me crazy. The verdict is still out on TFP's season, as well as whether or not I will be tuning into any of it, because like I said, I watch almost all of my TV with my husband, and again, Bachelorette is a hard sell. But I have been getting some solo TV time lately because I took the collective internet up on their suggestion and checked out the TV show Heated Rivalry, and the internet was not wrong. Now, Heated Rivalry is a Canadian sports romance TV show. It originally aired on the network Crave in Canada, but HBO bought the rights to show in the United States. And even though I am an avid hockey fan, I think I put off watching it for so long because I truly, I truly did not understand. So the official description is a romance set in the world of hockey. Shane Hollander and Ilya Rosanoff are two stars in Major League Hockey bound by ambition, rivalry, and a magnetic pull, neither of them fully understands. Now it's based on a popular book series, and to me, before I started watching it, I thought the premise seemed kind of far-fetched. Essentially, entering into the draft of their rookie year, Shane and Ilya are drafted first and second in the in the league, and they have a career-long rivalry. One goes to Boston, one goes to Montreal, which if you don't watch hockey, you probably don't know that that's a really intense rivalry, but they end up falling in love. And what I what I think I didn't understand most about the show is I didn't understand why there were so many women like me, straight married women mothers, who enjoyed the show. I mistakenly thought that a TV show about two men falling in love would be for men who were in love, you know, but I think it appeals to women because it shows two attra or, you know, rather four attractive masculine men being vulnerable in a romantic relationship. And we don't often get to see men being vulnerable portrayed on screen. It's always women who are the romantic vulnerable partner. And obviously, I'm not the only one who feels this way because it has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Episode 5, titled I'll Believe in Anything, is widely considered to be the best episode of the series, achieving a very rare 10 out of 10 rating on IMDB, which ranks it as the top-rated TV episode of 2025 and the second highest rated TV episode of all time. It is a very well-done TV show, and honestly, it might be one of the best TV shows that I've ever seen. Now, this is not a family-friendly drama. In many cases, it will not be a husband-friendly drama, but at the end of the day, it is a very well-done show with a very sweet love story. And it's entertaining because at the end of the day, that's what moms really want. We want to we want to lose ourselves completely in a drama that has nothing to do with our everyday lives. We don't married people like watching The Bachelor because we don't have to do that. We don't have to date again. We're married. Regular people like watching traitors because it put it pits celebrities against each other in far-fetched, crazy competition scenarios. Moms don't want to end the day and watch a reality show about other moms. In rare cases we do, like Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. But I want to sit down, I want to have no children on me, and I want to be fully engrossed in whatever it is that I'm watching. And speaking of moms with podcasts, a recent episode of Chloe and Wonderland, Chloe Kardashian happened to mention that she would never say never to being married and having kids again. But she also added that she does still have embryos frozen, and she is toying with the idea of using one of the remaining embryos to have a baby girl on her own. She said, Quote, I do have a few more embryos in the freezer, and I was like, I don't think I have the energy for another baby, but I do think girls need sisters. I do I think I do have one girl left, and I have been contemplating, like, do I just do this? Do it on my own? And this might be totally naive of me, but if she has embryos, that means that they've already received their male counterpart. Are these embryos with Tristan? Is he cool with her using the frozen embryos without him? Is this like launching a nuke? Does he have to turn his key? Or are they like her property? Can she just implant embryos with his donation, like whenever she sees fit? And she would be using a surrogate, she said. So like this is a this is a very kind of hands-off uh impregnation on both of their parts. But speaking of Chloe News, people are thinking that she might have a new man in her life thanks to a blind item posted on Crazy Days and Nights. It says, quote, they are trying to keep it quiet, at least from the public, but this alliterative reality star and former pseudo-relative are hooking up. Now, people think that this is about Chloe and Scott Dizick. Alliterative, meaning, you know, KK, Chloe Kardashian, and former pseudo-relative. Scott was in a long-term relationship with Courtney Kardashian and they have kids together. But if you ever watch the show, you know that Chloe and Scott have always kind of been on the same team. They're they have each other's backs, they've been good friends. But people seem to be insinuating that they've taken their relationship up a notch here. This has been a rumor like on and off for years and years and years, so much so that Chloe even mentioned on her podcast last year that she views Scott as a brother and not a romantic interest. However, there's a lot of interconnected, overlapping dating history inside the Kardashian Jenner family, most notably being Kylie dating Taiga shortly after he was with Black China, who later dated and had a baby with Rob. Barker said in his memoir how he had a huge raging crush on Kim Kardashian, and then now he's actually married to her sister, Courtney. Kim and Chloe were both romantically linked to rapper the game. And Chloe also dated both James Harden and French Montana, both of whom had previously dated her friend Trina. So it seems as though familial relations in that family is not a reason to exclude dating somebody. But no matter who she is dating, I think we all agree that we wish her luck if she decides to move forward with having another baby. And that is our short and sweet show for today. If you like today's episode, please use these topics to strike up a conversation and maybe a friendship with the moms around you. You can also give our show a five star rating wherever you're listening today. And you can follow me on Instagram at Caroline underscore Detman. Have a great week, and I will see you right back here again next time. Bye.