The excellent reason children shouldn't watch The Bachelor.

“They’re a pack of bitches, I wouldn’t want to date any of them.”

So went Keira’s glorious exit last week on The Bachelor, and as wept and wrung our hands that the year’s villain had stomped off the set, we revelled in the guilty pleasure that is women behaving badly.

Because, let’s face it, no-one is really watching The Bachelor for Richie. He’s handsome, but he’s really as bland as white rice, animated only by the colour and movement of the women around him.

If you were an 11-year-old girl watching these women, these curious aliens beamed down ET-style from another world, and if you were busy studying how to be one, what would it tell you about them?

This week on Mamamia Out Loud, we ask the big question: should you let your daughter watch The Bachelor?

Perhaps in answer to our conundrum, or maybe just because every mum in Australia right now is racking their brains for the answer, yesterday blogger Constance Hall penned a Facebook post for her daughter, titled An open letter to my 7 year old daughter who won’t talk to me because I won’t let her watch The Bachelor.

In it, she acknowledges the fact her daughter’s television viewing habits aren’t 100 per cent PG, “I let you watch all sorts of shows, you often hear swearing on TV and you don’t bat an eye lid at nudity,” she says, before going on to explain why The Bachelor is off-limits.

Of course, there are countless reasons why a parent might hesitate to let their daughter watch reality TV.

There’s the fact that they might not realise that it isn’t “real”. There’s the distorted view of what women are “supposed” to look like – all hair, boobs and lips. Lots of lips. And there’s the whole “I need a man to complete me” message.

But actually, Constance’s reasoning for her ‘hard arse’ stance is far more simple.

You don’t need to compete for love.

Competition may be ingrained in many other aspects of society:

‘You go to school and you are asked to run race against your best friend, you get into class and you offered a prize if you are the BEST artist in the class, you brush your hair in the bath tub with your friends and decide to hold a COMPETITION on whose hair is the longest,’ she laments in the post.

‘But do you know what one thing you should NEVER ever compete for is?’ she asks her daughter, ‘Love. Because there are no winners and there are no losers with love.’

And she reminds her daughter that when she falls in love, it should bring her friends joy, not jealousy. Friends “don’t sit in a corner at a cocktail party staring at you and bitching about you to other girls who they also hate.’

Constance’s post has been shared more than  81,000 times, and you know why? Because this may be a silly show, but it’s a silly show that we love to watch. So send the kids to their rooms, toss them a good book and enjoy the drama, bitching and constructed romance that is The Bachelor.

Mamamia Out Loud is the podcast that covers what everyone is talking about. Listen to the latest episode below, and subscribe in iTunes.