June Cleaver gets a bad rap.

[Jean in Newcastle]

We've been watching a "Leave it to Beaver" marathon on the oldies channel. I love watching functional families! Why does everyone always put down June? I think she's a wonderful mother. Sure she dresses much nicer than I do but I might dress like her if I had her figure! And she's a SAHM with no after-school duties (that they show) so I figure that's why her house is so immaculate. I find the Cleavers and Andy Griffith (on Mayberry RFD) my role models on how to parent kids with kindness and humor.

[seanda]

I love the show too.. and in the absence of role models in my life about what stay at home mothers can be... I have used in part these shows to show me. I realize that they are idealized in many, many ways... but I like having shows than inspire and not drag down. When I watch June or Aunt Bea I often feel like sighing. There is gentle family joy in these shows. (I am a terrible housewife.. but this is what I wish I was... and I try in little ways.)

 

Now shows tend to be with horrid, laughable families... and sometimes I think people are more comfortable that way. They can feel good about their lives. When they watch the old traditional shows the laugh and ridicule but I wonder if they don't also feel bad because their lives are not that way at all... and maybe they wish it was?

 

It certainly has been an interesting evolving of the sitcom.. from sweet almost too good shows the likes of Leave it To Beaver and Andy Griffith to the still nice shows of the days of Cosby, Family Ties, etc to the downright rude families of today's shows such as Two and a Half Men. There are thankfully occasional better shows like 7th Heaven that crop up and always do well in the ratings, but they seem rare in the swamp of immoral and laughing-stock families.

[Sharon H in IL]

My DH says he learned what families should be from watching TV in the fifties and early sixties. Poor man. His dad was a yeller, and produced shame and humiliation in his only child rather than love.

 

I totally agree with your assessment of why those old shows are ridiculed. Displaced anger and jealousy. I'd love to be more like the warm families they picture too. (Though I think we're doing pretty well, I'm happy to report.)

[BamaTanya]

How wonderful to have something I can trust my dc to watch and know they won't be exposed to anything questionable. When the dc disobey, there are consequences. And their parents love them!

 

I think people ridicule things that make them feel lacking. Some people, anyway. Other people enjoy or follow the example. :001_smile:

[Diana in OR]

As a sahm for 15 years (now I only work when my dc are in school), I have been accused more than once of being like June Cleaver. Though my home and family life don't resemble the Cleaver's at all, I find it interesting that sahms in this generation are compared to a 1950s sitcom family.

 

I would, however, like to have Mrs. Cleaver's figure, and really wish my boys' bedrooms were as tidy as the Cleaver boys, lol.

[NorthwestMom]

I think people mock them because they are far from the reality of many families, and the older ones like LITB never show even a moment's weakness or frustration by the parents.

 

That being said, my mom was often compared to June Cleaver while I was growing up (although she didn't dress as well - she LOVED polyester for its convenience and did not understand why everyone didn't wear it every day) and I feel very blessed and lucky to have been raised by her. So often I cannot understand the pain my dh and friends have gone through due to emotionally abusive parenting.

 

As a mom myself I am terrified of being held to such a high standard. It was television after all....

[Needleroozer]

We've been watching a "Leave it to Beaver" marathon on the oldies channel. I love watching functional families! Why does everyone always put down June? I think she's a wonderful mother. Sure she dresses much nicer than I do but I might dress like her if I had her figure! And she's a SAHM with no after-school duties (that they show) so I figure that's why her house is so immaculate. I find the Cleavers and Andy Griffith (on Mayberry RFD) my role models on how to parent kids with kindness and humor.

 

Just popping in for second, so I haven't read the other replies, but the modern day show that does this for me, has been Seventh Heaven. I have to admit, my childhood was far from that of the Cleavers or the Camdens, and I do learn a great deal from how each family parents with humour.

 

Gotta go!

[Zelda]

I will happily take out anyone who puts down June Cleaver in my presence.

[Zelda]

I think people mock them because they are far from the reality of many families, and the older ones like LITB never show even a moment's weakness or frustration by the parents.

 

I think people who say that didn't see the shows. The funniest parts are when Ward is completely flummoxed by the boys or when he and June are shooting blank stares at each other across the table.

[AprilTN]

Leave it to Beaver is one of our family's very favorite shows. It's so funny, and you can watch it with the whole family without worrying what they will say or do.

 

One day we saw a card in a store that had a Leave it to Beaver picture and humor. My dc were excited to find it, and for some reason I was so proud of their enthusiasm.

 

It's my own brand of snobbery, I guess.

[dawn of ns]

June Cleaver today is a good thing. June Cleaver in her time when she was the archtype of a role that nearly every sitcom, ad or magazine was pushing on women wasn't such a good thing. People generally remember her in the context of her times.

 

Personally, I find her and characters like her refreshing but it's because I live in a time when there's such a wealth of different roles for women in the media.

[flyingmommy]

This will sound a little goofy, but I really loved those shows when I was a kid because they showed me that not all families were as screwy as mine! LOL I loved the Brady Bunch, the Partidge Family, My Three Sons, etc. I'd watch those shows all the time. Even the Adams Family was more normal than mine! :)

 

I don't see a thing in the world wrong with being compared to June Cleaver. I figure, the people who attack these shows and what they represent, or refer to SAHMs as June Cleavers (in a derogatory manner) are kind of like people who attack home schooling without any good reason. They're really doing it because they feel threatened and they feel that you are secretly looking down on them and thinking that they are failures as parents, or home makers, or whatever. They take your life choices as judgments against them.

 

June Cleaver rocks!:thumbup:

 

Jeannie

[dirty ethel rackham]

June Cleaver today is a good thing. June Cleaver in her time when she was the archtype of a role that nearly every sitcom, ad or magazine was pushing on women wasn't such a good thing. People generally remember her in the context of her times.

 

 

Exactly. June Cleaver became a touchstone for those who were trying to break out of the restriction that the only role women could play was to be wife and mother. Making fun of her was equivalent to burning one's bra - bra's weren't bad, but they were a symbol of repression. June Cleaver wasn't bad, being a wife and mother wasn't bad, but the society that limited every woman to that role expected every women to desire that role and only that role was the problem. Ridiculing June Cleaver was a way of drawing attention to the point.

[Tarheel Heather]

I have always equated my in-laws to the Cleaver's and my family to the Adam's family. My parents are waay too much like Morticia (?), and Gomez. Makes for interesting family gatherings.

[Garga]

I just watched my first Leave it to Beaver episode two days ago! I loved it! I agree with the OP completely. I am going to start watching it more and look up to June as an excellent role model.

[Sara R]

Exactly. June Cleaver became a touchstone for those who were trying to break out of the restriction that the only role women could play was to be wife and mother.

 

Yet, that was a strength of that period of society. My grandmother raised her children during that time. She was born to a very dysfunctional family (divorced parents, her mom got custody and then abandoned her). Yet she was able to be a decent mother to her children just by doing what the other mothers did. Motherhood was valued, and because of the strength of motherhood at that time, it carried along some people who would have been marginal mothers in another time.