The Myth Of The Family :: essays research papers

The Myth of the Model FamilyTHOSE OF US WHO grew up in the 1950s got an image of the American family that was not, shall we say, accurate. We were told, Father Knows Best, retract It to Beaver, and Ozzie and Harriet were not but the stylus matters were supposed to bebut the way things wereIts probably good that vitality wasnt like the television shows in the 50swe wouldnt ready many women now. Take a look at the ratio of boys to girls on the most popular family shows. Ozzie and Harriet had 2 boys, no girls. Leave It to Beaver had two boys, no girls. Rifleman had bingle boy, oneness rifle, no girls. Lassie had one boy, one dog (supposedly a girl, but played by a boy), and no girls. My Three Sons hadwell, that ones obvious. Bonanza had three grown-up boys. Although Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in real life had one boy and one girl, on I Love Lucy they had one boy. The only shows with daughters were The Donna Reed Show (one boy, one girl) and that lighthouse to womanhood despit e its titleFather Knows Best (one boy, two girls). Grown to maturity, thats a late-1960s date population of fifteen men to three women. Almost all the households were mama-papa-kiddies the thermonuclear family. (The exceptions were My Three Sons and Bonanza Steve Douglas Fred MacMurray and Ben Cartwright were widowers.) There were no foregoing marriages, no children from prior relationships, no threat or even thought of divorce, and the closest thing we saw to physical abuse was Ralph Kramdens, "One of these days, Alice, one of these days . . . to the stagnate" There were no infidelities, no drinking problems, no drugs (not even ethical drug tranquilizers), no racism (How could there be? With the exception of Hop maunder and Ricky Ricardo, there was only one race even the Hispanic nurseryman on Father Knows Best was named Frank Smith). There was no displace out of school, no political discussion (much less political differences), no unemployment (except for Ozzies ea rly retirement), no severe economic problem (except for a browse failure on Lassie, when they had to sell all the livestock, including Lassie but just before being carted off, Lassie pawed the ground and struck oil, and everything was okay again. miss for Lassie, who looked as though the Exxon Valdez had dumped its forward holding tanks on her).