The first episode of NITV’s Family Rules aired last night, and it has Australia talking for all the right reasons.
Dubbed the “Aussie Kardashians” the show features Daniella Borg and her nine daughters facing the dilemmas of family life in contemporary Australia.
Producer Renee Kennedy puts it best when she describes the Rule family as at once “completely ordinary but extremely extraordinary”.
In 2004, husband and father of nine, Kevin Rule, was the victim of a fatal one punch attack. Daniella’s youngest daughter was only a few weeks old when she lost her 38-year-old father.
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But last night wasn’t a story of tragedy. It was a depiction of an Indigenous family, which we rarely (if ever) see on prime time television, negotiating the everyday complications that come with raising teenage daughters.
Here are the top moments from the first episode of Family Rules.
Daniella Borg on being a single mum
We first meet Daniella as she yells at 17-year-old Aleisha “no cleaning, no Wifi!”, establishing that she is, in fact, a brilliant parent.
She’s strong, incredibly smart and driven, and values nothing more than family and education. The lounge room boasts what she calls the “honours wall”, where she hangs photographs of all her daughters graduating from high school, an opportunity Daniella never had.