Ah, the life of a working mom

Seattle Times - May 12, 2000

You wake up in the morning and pause to savor the fresh air wafting in the window of your $1 million Craftsman bungalow. Leaning out to wave at the cheerful gardener, you also take a minute to counsel your tearful au pair, Luz, on her romantic travails.

Elsewhere, the kids already are dressing themselves for school. Following an amorous 5 a.m. interlude, your husband is making breakfast downstairs, leaving you time to decide whether to go with Ralph Lauren or Prada for your high-powered magazine/law/catering job.

The day, of course, won't prove stress-free. There will be the roguish co-worker who doesn't care that you're married. A crisis will erupt when son Jason imperils his future by cheating on a Myers-Briggs test. And Luz will quit, creating havoc until you remember your recently widowed Mom loves children.

This is your life, isn't it? And if not - well, forget about Mother's Day. You simply haven't been watching enough TV lately.

In the years since "Roseanne" and "Grace Under Fire" became landmark shows with their realistic portrayals of working mothers, the depiction of such women on TV has undergone a curious sea change. The results are more strange than rich.

On the up side, working mothers have more representation than at any time in TV history. Though the networks still prefer single characters, Roseanne and Grace have many successors, including Carol in "ER," Lily in "Once and Again," Amy in "Judging Amy" and Lois in "Malcolm in The Middle."

But bigger numbers tell only one story. And in the case of today's TV working mothers, the rupture between fantasy and reality also is growing.

Consider the classic problems for women who have real-life children and real-life jobs: not enough time, not enough money, not enough romance.

On TV, these obstacles make episodic appearances at best. And when they do, they are sailed over with an aplomb that would have been laughable to Roseanne Conner and Grace Kelly.

Take Lily, the divorced mom portrayed by Sela Ward in "Once and Again." Despite the fact that money is a notorious factor in determining the (generally reduced) circumstances of ex-wives, Lily is cushioned from such concerns by a well-heeled father. Her job ventures are more about esteem therapy than actual need.

Indeed, many of TV's working mothers possess an enviable freedom to follow their self-actualizing star. In "Roseanne" and "Grace," the who-am-I? question was shoved aside by the demands of motherhood and money; today, it's the TV mom's central obsession. When housewife Debra Barone (Patricia Heaton) pursued a job in "Everybody Loves Raymond" this season, it was to reclaim identity rather than put bread on the table.

TV working moms also have child-care windfalls that test credulity. How many women get a handy live-in grandma to assist like Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies) of "ER" and Amy Gray (Amy Brenneman) of "Judging Amy" do? As for romance, suffice it to say there's always time for a night out and the perfect outfit that no child ever vomits on.

With all the unlikely circumstances that surround working mothers on TV, there nevertheless are a few shows that attempt to do justice to real-life harried moms. "That '70s Show" adhered admirably to its era and spirit when Kitty Forman (Debra Jo Rupp) took a job after inflation and downsizing hit home. "Third Watch" makes a periodic effort to show the tensions between work and home that exist for married cop Faith Yokas (Molly Price).

And no working mother is so brilliantly portrayed as actress Jane Kaczmarek's Lois on "Malcolm in The Middle." From her perpetually creased forehead to her rat-a-tat bedtime homilies to her early-morning dishevelment, Lois is the woman most working mothers recognize - even if we wouldn't use stacked laundry to hide our nakedness until the bra comes out of the dryer.


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