For starters, here’s a brief biography about the characters and premise of ‘Modern Family’; the show, set in the present, and focused on the daily life of a modern family. A patriarch, Jay, marries a Colombian trophy wife, Gloria, with a perky chest and a son from a previous marriage, Manny, who is a 40-year-old gentleman in a 14-year-old body. Jay has two children, Mitchell and Claire, each of whom is married with children of their own. Mitchell is an overly sarcastic and uptight lawyer who is planning a wedding to his longtime partner, Cameron, an overly dramatic farmer. Mitchell and Cameron have a daughter named Lily who they adopted from abroad. Claire married Phil, a goofy, good-hearted real estate agent, and they have three kids: Haley (the pretty one), Alex (the smart one), and Luke (the dumb one).

In this particular episode, Mitchell and Cameron ask Claire to pick up Lily from school and not tell her that Lily’s school emailed parents about a head lice outbreak in her class. Claire picks Lily up from school and is bitten by a lice infestation soon after.

Now that we know the cast and the basic premise of the episode, let’s discuss the inconsistencies within:

1.Mitchell notifies Cam of the lice outbreak email and the first thing Cam does is accuse the “dirty” girl in Lily’s class, Portia, of being the source of the infestation. DEAR PARENTS, LICE CAN NOT ONLY INFEST SO MUCH CLEAN AND DIRTY HAIR, BUT THEY PREFER CLEAN HAIR TO DIRTY HAIR! Anyone can get head lice and blaming “dirty” Portia is not only petty, but inaccurate as a definitive source.

two.During the conversation above, Cam and Mitchell discuss telling Claire to warn her about picking up Lily from school and Cam says they shouldn’t because Claire has “a 1% chance of catching him, but a 100% chance.” that the news scares her. . Not only is this information inaccurate, but it’s also one of the BIGGEST reasons head lice are such a big problem. If the infestation is not made known to those who come into contact with a lice-ridden child, it will only continue in cycle.

3. After the selfie, Claire attends a meeting with Mitchell and a potential client. While Claire is at the meeting, Mitchell gets a call from Cameron telling him that Lily does, in fact, have head lice. Cam and Mitch debate yet again whether or not to tell Claire about Lily’s lice and Mitchell sees Claire emerge from under a desk with an obviously very itchy scalp. Now, lice cause itching in only 50% of active cases and the itching occurs as a reaction to the saliva excreted by a louse while laying its eggs. Those who experience itchiness will likely notice the itchy sensation after having head lice for almost 2 weeks! Claire was itching only hours after contact with Lily.

Here are things done right:

1. The school Really sent out a notice to parents when there was an outbreak of head lice in the class. Not many schools will do this and it is very harmful to all the children in the school! Some schools don’t even notify teachers about positive cases of head lice in their classroom! Without eliminating all cases of head lice within the school, there will always be head lice within the school. Notifying the class is a very smart and proactive administrative move!

2. The way Claire gets head lice (regardless of the inaccuracy that follows) is VERY likely. Without context, the episode clearly shows Claire taking a ‘selfie’ with Lily with her hair clearly over Lily’s. Transfer of lice by head-to-head contact 98% of the time; they can’t jump or fly, so in addition to a 2% transfer rate of bedding, headbands and the like, they transfer from strand to strand quickly when presented with a new environment. Lily’s scalp could definitely have transferred lice to Claire’s.

3. After Cameron’s call to Mitchell telling him that Lily had lice, Mitchell walks into the office where Claire is sitting face to face with the client looking at a magazine and quickly slides the man’s chair away from Claire and discreetly tells him that she has running. The customer quickly leaves and walks back in only to give Claire an unstoppable hug as she and Mitchell look at each other knowingly. This is ‘Modern Family”s second accurate depiction of a lice transfer.

4. At the last minute of the episode, Phil sends untreated Lily to piggyback on her arch-rival to try to give him head lice. Once again, this is your third and last successful performance of head lice treatment.

In conclusion, ‘Modern Family’ is a fantastically fun and entertaining TV show, there’s little doubt about that (rating-wise), but with how many people watch ‘Modern Family’ one would think they could at least check out their lice episode. by someone or anyone who knows anything about lice before filming the episode. Cam’s interactions with Lily are priceless and the face-to-face contact is very realistic and factual, but having Claire itchy a few hours after getting head lice? Come on, check people out. Let’s use these great actors to teach the public something about head lice.