Mad Mom

Have you seen Mad Men yet?

In case you haven't heard, it's a show on AMC about advertising executives in Manhattan in 1960. But mostly it's a show about the sixties, where pregnant women smoke and drink wine in the afternoon, kids roll around in the back seats of cars with nary a car seat in sight, and a mother is more concerned about the clothes that her daughter took out of her dry cleaning bag than she is about the fact that her daughter is walking around with the plastic dry cleaning bag over her head.

The men in Mad Men spend most of the afternoon drinking cocktails in the office and when they're not secretly ogling the secretaries through one way mirrors, they're treating them like toys or having a lot hotter sex with them than they do their wives.

The office scenes and commentary about the rise of advertising in our culture are certainly interesting and having worked in television for a few years I'm not a stranger to being objectified in the workplace. (i.e. When I was eight months pregnant my boss told me that he'd gotten complaints from viewers who said it looked like I'd stopped washing my hair. I hadn't.) But it's Mad Men's domestic scenes that are really fascinating to me. Yes, the sixties infantalized women, but there's something to be said about the fact that women completely controlled what happened at home. Marco and I have often discuss the difficulties of what today is called co-parenting. We agree that sometimes it's nice for both of us to be with the kids on our own so we can make a decision about something and have that be the end of it.

I wouldn't trade the equal parenting that Marco and I share, and I prefer my daily addictions of e-mail and green tea to cigarettes and martinis, but sometimes I long for those Mad Men days. Plus, the clothes are awesome.

You can rent the first season of Mad Men on DVD from Netflix or buy it at iTunes.

Here's the pilot, if you're interested.

Comments

[attiton]

I watched every goshdarned minute of this show when it came around the first time. It buoyed me through many of the horrid, sleep-deprived days during the first few months of my daughter's life. It transported me. Totally wonderful.

[Nikki Massaro Kauffman]

Megan,

Thanks for the recommendation. My husband and I (both working parents who try to balance our own IT careers and parenting, as well as an hour commute) enjoy having entertainment to enjoy after the kids go to sleep.

We've just finished all of Coupling (we were a little late catching on to that one) streamed via Netflix. We also watch Torchwood.

And when the kids are up we all enjoy Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures together. I prefer them to the Disney shows because my kids don't get subjected to silly stereotypes of how preteens, people of color, and homosexuals should act. Plus I love the deeper questions my kids ask about the situations and characters after the shows. They are really learning to empathize with other people and viewpoints.

I'd love to hear more about what television shows families are watching. Keep it coming!

Nikki

[RookieMom Whitney]

I agree that we sometimes move faster when we split up - each with a kid rather than the whole clan of 4 together with two decision makers.

I like Mad Men for the style, but found the first episode hard to take because every character was so mean. I kept up with it and got addicted.

[zmama]

I remember those days for real (I was born in 1953)... cigs, martinis, no car seats... the whole bit. Imagine 6 kids in a station wagon bouncing around all over the place without restraint. it's amazing we are all still alive to talk about it!!

I'll have to check out Mad Men. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Jan]

I've seen "Mad Men" a few times and it was alright. I was a teenager in the '60s but my experience was on the political side of the decade, more on the flower-power-y Woodstockish side (and what an experience THAT was, wouldn't trade it for anything) and have to admit I caught myself paying more attention to how well they captured the feel of that time than to the story line.

Then there's also "Swingtown" on CBS about the '70s, during which time I was a college student and then a young married and then a young divorcee. You might get a kick of that too. It concentrates on, as the title suggests, the 'swinging' aspect of the time - "open marriages", etc. As with "Mad Men", not everyone lived that way by a long shot, but it's fun to watch the props, clothes, sets, etc., and see how well they get the overall cultural feel of the time.

[coach outlet]

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