Maternal experience and maternal media

Numbers of lesbian mothers and women who become single mothers by choice are on the increase; and higher numbers of women with young children are working than in previous generations, in part because they are entering into motherhood later than their mothers and grandmothers³. The number of women becoming first time mothers in their 30s and 40s is rising, at the same time as the numbers of teenage mothers are in decline. Since the turn of the millennium ‘the average age of women having their first child went up’ in all American states (CDC cited in Sifferlin 2016). Many of these women will have found career success before choosing motherhood. These women might well be turning their professional role into maternal duty, with baby massage classes replacing pitching and presentations and later, sing and sign sessions replacing board meetings and working lunches. However, rather than applaud ‘professional’ motherwork, there is a sense that these women are part of a feminist backlash, with the ideology of intensive mothering helping to maintain a sense of maternal inadequacy and an inability to competently combine motherwork with paid labour outside of the home⁴.

As work, life and mothering practices have changed, so too has the notion of the ‘good’ mother. After all, even though there has been a longstanding and ubiquitous link between appropriate mothering and stay-at-home motherhood, whereby women are responsible for the domestic arena in the male-as-breadwinner nuclear unit, it was not until the late 1980s that the ideology of intensive mothering took centre stage as the maternal ideal (Maushart 1999; O’Reilly 2004). In line with ideology of intensive mothering, the ‘good’ mother is said to be entirely responsible for the social, psychological and cognitive well-being of her children. Moreover, if a mother has more than one child then not only is she responsible for the playtime, mealtimes, bedtimes, extra-curricular education, physical, cultural and creative activities for each child, but also responsible for instigating and monitoring the bonding that takes place between them (Munn 1994). The growing trend towards the ideology of intensive mothering constructs and champions a particular maternal image, which reduces a mother’s identity to her maternal role.

Representations of motherhood exist in all forms of media texts that seek to engage, entertain, inform and educate the audience. And yet, although there is a myriad of ways in which women can and do mother, the mass media seems committed to presenting the strict, rigid and narrow ideology of intensive mothering in a range of newspapers, self-help books, parenting manuals, magazines, advertising campaigns and feature films (Michaels and Douglas 2005).

Dedicating your entire physical, emotional, economic and social selves to your children, is at best exhausting and at worst implausible. What is important according to this ideology is that the ‘good’ mother is not committed to her children because she feels that she should be or because she feels that it is her stay-at-home duty, but rather, she habitually puts her child first because she wants to. She finds it fulfilling rather than frustrating, satisfying rather than stifling, and has no negative feelings towards her family for putting her own social, sexual, economic or creative needs in second, third or fourth place (Maushart 1999, Green 2004, O’Reilly 2004, Borisoff 2005, Douglas and Michaels 2005, Warner 2007, Maushart 2007). The problem is of course that no mother can ever live up to an unattainable ideal. The working mother is deemed a failure by virtue of her hours in the labour market, and the number of mothers entering the workplace is currently on the increase, in part due to the continuing economic crisis in the US⁵. Furthermore, it is not just working mothers who are deemed unacceptable in the pronatalist period (Borisoff 2005). Many stay-at-home mothers also struggle to live up to the ‘good’ mother myth because of the physical, financial and emotional resources that this form of mothering demands (Held 1983, Asher 2012).

The ‘good’ mother dominates the media marketplace, with few alternatives to this maternal depiction. As such, the ideology of intensive mothering appears as a powerful, persuasive and indeed, potent image of motherhood that audiences feel compelled to try to emulate, or to judge themselves by (Feasey 2016). Representations of motherhood in the entertainment arena are not presented as motherhood manuals and creative directors would not deem their escapist fare to be held up as a mirror to the lived experience of motherhood. Yet women in the media audience look to these depictions and routinely question their own pregnancies, birthing experiences and maternal practices (Maushart 1999, Wolf 2002, Tally 2008, Feasey 2016).

That said, I have recently argued that popular television, as a traditionally feminised and domestic medium, can be seen to debunk the ideology of intensive mothering and go some way towards challenging the dominance of the ‘good’ mother, as a number of factual and fictional genres address the improbability of this maternal role. A range of soap operas, dramas and reality texts appear committed to the notion of ‘good enough’ mothers, mothers who love their children, cherish their families but struggle with the financial, emotional, social or logistical reality of childcare (Feasey 2012a, Feasey 2013). These women are not upholding the image of acceptable motherhood and they are either unable or unwilling to conform to the ideology of intensive mothering. That said, there is a sense that those women who debunk the ‘good’ mother myth are the same women who are in dialogue with this ideal. The televisual ‘good enough’ mothers hold themselves up to the idealised standards of the intensive mother, so that rather than demonstrate comfort with or confidence in their own maternal practices, they tend to hold themselves up to a socially approved maternal mirror, making them, and the audience question their maternal efforts. In this way, television as a medium both confronts and confounds the ‘good’ mother myth as it continues to present acceptable maternal norms and approved familiar mores for the woman in the audience. As a case in point, the situation comedy often simultaneously reaffirms and subverts the longstanding ‘good’ mother in favour of one that is just ‘good enough’, and it is to this comedic genre that I now turn (Feasey 2012a).

Mom

Like Lucy, Roseanne and Grace, Christy is not presented as a ‘good’ mother and one might suggest that she is not even positioned as a ‘good enough’ mother due to the range of social, sexual, financial, familial and physical challenges that she faces on a day to day basis. Indeed, the very premise of the show is that Christy has been let down by friends and family, and it is her job to try and find a way through the tough reality of work, family life, dating and addiction. The programme has not only found an audience on both sides of the Atlantic, but is popular enough with that audience to be renewed for further seasons. Part of the appeal we are told is that we get to laugh with the characters, rather than at them. In its first season, the programme already makes numerous jokes about Christy and her mother’s alcoholism and financial difficulties. Although these are serious themes and therefore not perhaps the fare of much sitcom humour, the fact that ‘the characters make light of their own situation’ is said to make it ‘easier for the audience to go along with the joke’ (Porter 2013). Mom follows its female-centred sitcom predecessors as they all, in complex and compelling ways, puncture the romanticised maternal ideal in favour of the unruly mother. What these carnivalesque women have in common is a desire for social, sexual and financial agency in a patriarchal society that deems funny, strong, smart, caustic, overweight, working class and single women at best unpalatable, and at worst, poor maternal figures. We are able to laugh with these women because they are presented as active, albeit struggling protagonists. We watch them develop throughout their maternal and familial journey’s, rather than witness them passively submit to the status quo. Lucy, Roseanne, Grace and Christy challenge social conventions as they fail to live up to maternal ideals, and the contrast between ‘good’ and ‘good enough’ mothering is made even more explicit in a pronatalist period dominated by the ideology of intensive mothering.

Rather than seek to predict viewer commentaries of Mom, I want to turn to existing user reviews. After all, it is crucial that we understand how audiences are reading media texts rather than second-guessing how they could, should or would have come to understand them. Existing work accounts for a discussion of ‘participatory culture’ (Jenkins 2006, Couldry et al. 2009), netnography and social media audience research (Deller 2011) whereby reviews and commentaries can be utilized as a form of contemporary audience studies. With this in mind, I want to unmask those recurring themes and debates that exist in user reviews in order to present an authentic audience reading that may otherwise be repacked, repurposed or silenced in more traditional interview of focus group forums.

The overwhelming majority of reviews seen here refer to the cycle of teenage pregnancy that exists in Mom, and the interweaving narrative concerning drugs and alcohol use, poverty, abuse and rehabilitation. And although these commentators agree that the comedy is both dark and provocative, there is a division in how they respond to the inclusion of such subject matter within the situation comedy. It is not my intention to foreground which audiences have best understood or most accurately engaged with the genre in question, nor is it my intention to point out where the programme has accurately, or otherwise, depicted specific characters, scenes, lifestyles or working practices. Rather, I am interested in making sense of the ways in which audiences respond to the show in light of broader social and maternal themes, themes which exist beyond the entertainment arena. In this way, I hope to shed light and offer critical insight into the ways in which audiences rank and classify appropriate, acceptable and failing motherhood in relation to the wider sexual, social and maternal context.

Some audiences spoke negatively and at length on the topic of intergenerational teen pregnancy, poverty and addiction, suggesting that such experiences were not suited to a mainstream comedy production. The concern was not because the situations in question were unrealistic or sensationalised, but rather, tasteless in their authenticity. In short, it was the too brutal reality of these themes that was of concern here:

The storyline is disgusting and rather depressing! The main character was bought up by a dysfunctional alcoholic mother and is a recovering alcoholic herself with a pregnant teenage daughter! (bellab1972, 2014).

Topics were simply too serious to be funny. Multi-generational sluts, teen pregnancies, adultery, drug and alcohol use, drug sales (at least they threw in AA), absent and deadbeat dads. Hey I can watch the news for this plot (lec-tex, 2013).

This show is horrid, awful and disgusting. It is not about a dysfunctional family (which can be funny), it is about junk, garbage people, their miserable lives and lowbrow toilet humor. I was horrified to know that there are people that think it is funny to be an alcoholic, a pregnant teenager, a promiscuous mother/grandmother (trans_mauro 2014).

This show is trying to sell comedy on situations that aren’t comedic. This is a show about at least 2 generations of alcoholic, drug addicted, promiscuous mothers with zero parenting skills and the breeding of a third generation to turn out the same way (angelbaby3838 2013).

There are clearly grey areas about what family dynamics and domestic dysfunction are considered appropriate situation comedy fare. If dysfunctional families ‘can be funny’, why then is Mom considered to be ‘horrid’ and ‘awful’. These different maternal generations are all attractive according to the long standing and ubiquitous ‘beauty myth’ (Wolf 1991/2015) and they all adhere to what has been termed the ‘thin ideal’ (Redmond 2003), moreover, they live in a comfortable family home that seems spacious and inviting (before the family are evicted due to gambling debts), and as such it is neither the surface appearance nor domestic environment that creates a sense of ‘misery’, ‘depression’ or ‘disgust’ for viewers.

The sitcom has routinely presented characters as desiring and desirable, and one might suggest that Mom is no different here. That said, audiences refer to these women as promiscuous, as if holding mothers up to different social and sexual standards than their childfree counterparts. Not just different to their childfree counterparts, but different again to their appropriate maternal sisters. After all, the ‘good’ mother dedicates her entire physical, emotional, economic and social self to her children, and finds satisfaction and fulfillment in this full time domestic role. The fact that Bonnie and Christy have sartorial, social and sexual desires might position them as ‘good enough’ mothers if their desires had a positive impact on the family environment, but because their desires and barely contained addictions routinely threaten to break the family apart, audiences read them as failing rather than merely flawed caregivers.

The programme is clearly dealing with sensitive subject matter, but the language used to comment on teen pregnancy is loaded, emotive and divisive. Terms such as ‘slut’ are used to ‘put women down, to shame girls, to victim-blame in cases of sexual assault and harassment, and to ridicule and oppress female sexuality in general’⁸ (Steinkellner 2015). One can refer to codes and conventions of teen pregnancy and single motherhood in the sitcom without using such sexual judgment. Moreover, sexual judgement is interlinked with maternal discrimination as these women are critiqued for their choice of unsuitable fathers and lack of parenting skills. What is causing disquiet here is the sense that these women are ‘breeding’ a new generation of poor, alcoholic teen mothers. It is the cycle of poverty and teen pregnancy in concert with pleasurable sexual activity and addiction that is the root of much audience anxiety and viewing hostility. Seeing these teen mothers speak as active subjects rather than passive objects is what makes them unruly women, to be dismissed as ‘garbage’ rather than ‘good’ mothers to be applauded.

A narrative centred on three generations of teen mothers is tinged with social, financial and educational hardships, and the addition of alcohol addiction to the family dynamic can be seen to add further tension and trauma to the piece. Although they might appear ‘depressing’, to refer to these ubiquitous and long-standing dramatic tropes as ‘disgusting’ foregrounds hostility, intolerance and discrimination. The fact that we could routinely ‘watch the news’ for such stories suggests that it is not the themes that are problematic per se, but rather the repackaging of them for a mainstream sitcom audience, who are more routinely served up work-place frissions, the trials of new relationships and the harried maternal figure in the traditional nuclear family. In other media texts and formats, topics such as addiction, poverty and the cycle of teen pregnancy might be deemed gritty, harrowing or realistic, but here it is deemed ‘low brow’. Mom is not unique in addressing these themes, nor is the show the first to find humour in dark subject matter, but by exploiting intergenerational teen pregnancy, it is acknowledging a growing social and sexual anxiety that exists apart from the fictional narrative. What is truly groundbreaking here however is that it is being made and marketed as family entertainment, and it is this repackaging of the gritty subject matter that lends itself to the critique of debased taste formations and cultural distinctions.

The problem identified in these reviews is not that these teen mothers are lacking parenting skills but that they are demonstrating resourcefulness and resilience in the face of what is a tough and challenging maternal role. The fact that these mothers remain in the family home and show love for their children, whilst speaking openly about their frustrations as sole emotional and financial providers can be seen as just one more example of a female-centred sitcom in the Roseanne tradition. Like Roseanne before her, Christy is unapologetic about her maternal thoughts, makes little attempt to present herself in line with the ideology of intensive mothering and seldom holds herself up to unattainable maternal ideals.

Other reviews picked up on the inappropriateness of intergenerational teen mothering for a comedy show because of what was seen as a tasteless mocking of the socio-economic groups that dominate the show. Although the situation comedy has a long history of presenting unconventional and more recently, dysfunctional middle and working class families, Mom is said to push the boundaries of the genre by actively exploiting the white working class. One review accuses the show of ‘jumping on some trendy, white trash bandwagon’ (Kimba1178 2013) perhaps on the back of programmes such as Shameless (UK 2004– ) (US 2011– ), My Big Fat Gypsy Weddings/Holiday/Christening/Valentine (2010– ), Ladette to Lady (2005–2008) and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (2012–17). Indeed, these white working class depictions have so saturated our television landscape that extant literature is asking itself When Did White Trash Become the New Normal (Hays 2013). Although popular reviews foreground hostility towards Mom’s representation of the struggling family, they go further than to simply point to their dislike for a specific social group. Some go as far as dismissing the programme for what they see as its support of, even encouragement towards the intergenerational cycle of teen pregnancy. Commentators write that:

TV clearly influences our country and our kids … How much worse could this be for our daughters to watch? Heartwarming? Three generations of disrespect, careless, self abuse, with no direction for their lives. Oh yeah, that’s comedy (Kimba1178 2013).

Really? You really had a sappy, totally unrealistic stupid show glorifying teenage pregnancy, with the mom and grandmother happily supporting this moronic situation? Don’t you understand how much damage you did, and that now some stupid, immature teenage girls who already are playing with this fantasy with their equally stupid boyfriends just got another green light to delude themselves into believing ‘Aww, how cute I’ll be pregnant and my boyfriend will be all happy and supportive, as will my mom, and we’ll just trip on down the road of life and live happily ever after’… What a terrible disservice you did to teenage girls! (Johnston 2013).

In traditional sitcoms the ‘good’ mother is a supporting presence, and these women are encouraged to put their child’s physical and emotional needs before their own. With this in mind, Christy might be deemed an appropriate maternal figure due to the fact that she offers practical advice and emotional support to her pregnant daughter, irrespective of her own frustrations, needs or desires. However, although maternal support is to be commended from serene mothers instructing their children from within middle class nuclear family units, a teen mother offering comfort to her pregnant teenage daughter is deemed a negligent form of ‘abuse’ rather than a well-meaning form of support in these reviews. Such commentary makes distinctions between appropriate and inappropriate, ‘good enough’ and poor maternal practices, but these distinctions are at best intangible and at worst stigmatizing, exploiting stereotypes that present teen mothers as unmotivated, irresponsible, and incompetent parents (SmithBattle 2013).

It is interesting that the commentators seem to place the problem of unplanned teenage pregnancy on ‘immature’ girls and ‘stupid’ boys rather than on a lack of meaningful sex education or failed contraception. The situation may be understood as life-changing or traumatic, emotionally or financially difficult, but ‘moronic’ seems an odd term in this regard. Unplanned teenage pregnancy will always be a cause of surprise and shock for the individuals in question, but the fact that Violet and her boyfriend have shared the news with their parents and are trying to work out the best possible future for themselves and the baby might be better understood as difficult or challenging rather than ‘moronic’. Indeed, these reviewers construct and circulate several assumptions about the vulnerability, impressionability and passivity of a teen generation both on and beyond the small screen.

Moreover, there is no word in the user comments about the scenes and sequences that see Christy’s daughter put her child up for adoption. The programme asks us to feel her loss and pain but accept both her selfless and selfish reasoning. This was an extended narrative arc that went some way towards highlighting the options available for those young women who find themselves pregnant. Careless, maybe. Heartwarming, no. Cute, hardly. The narrative shows a young couple making a difficult decision that would, they believe, be best for their future and the future of their baby. They were shown to take the decision seriously, and to consider the consequences at length, albeit in conventional sitcom spaces with light relief and a predictable laugh track.

There is a very real sense that audiences, commentators and reviewers acknowledge a dialogue between television and the wider social context, suggesting that popular shows such as Mom have a responsibility to their audience. This is perhaps unsurprising given that the situation comedy has a long history of challenging social and sexual stereotypes, and of introducing controversial or taboo subject matter in ‘conventional spaces’ in a way that is palatable to audiences (Battles and Hilton Morrow 2002). From this estimation, it is not the subject matter per se that is tasteless and thoughtless, but rather the tame representation of that subject matter and social group. In short, the programme is being condemned for ostensibly supporting teenage pregnancy because it is not challenging enough.

While the aforementioned reviewers dismissed the show for its depressing storylines and dysfunctional families, others welcomed the show precisely because of its comedic framing of teen pregnancy against a backdrop of addiction and socio-economic hardship. One reviewer made the point that ‘it’s not just a comedy, it bears so much grief and pain as well as many great funny stories’ (shaoyicheng 2014). Many reviews echo this point :

I get very angry when people call this trashy. These people are normal! They are not living in a trailer selling meth! The show also does not glorify teen pregnancy. If you watch the show the mother knows she made mistakes raising her daughter… She did not like the fact her daughter was pregnant but she knows there is nothing she can do about it! The teen made a mistake. Her mother still loves her and that was an AWESOME MESSAGE. This is after all not the 1950’s (Stanton67 2014).

I love shows that tell it like it is. Shows that don’t sugarcoat awful situations … This show pushes the envelope in family dysfunction. It’s two steps further into the abyss than The Simpsons or Married With Children. As much as people don’t want to admit, we do turn out like our parents. Unfortunately this is a family of alcoholic, drug addicted, sluts. Violet is keeping the family tradition alive by getting pregnant while still in high school. Christy who is trying to survive and stay sober has strained relationships with both Violet and her own mother. Christy is a punching bag for both… While not mean spirited, she’s told Violet that having her ruined her life. It’s hard to fathom, but hilarious to hear. This is a show that’s not for the delicate or faint of heart. It’s raw on every level (davidsmith666999 2013).

I do not really understand how people do not appreciate this show. They are completely missing out on the plot. It talks about real life problems with some humour. It does not advocate any kind of lifestyle but just how people deal with those problems. There are not a lot of shows that talk about those topics and it is done really well. People shouldn’t be judging a show because they don’t like the subject matter of teenage pregnancy, or alcoholism. It’s great to see these topics discussed in an open way. A funny one. But at the same time these topics are taken seriously (Chloe-baconluver 2013).

I honestly think the people leaving negative reviews about this show really just don’t understand the direction of the show. While this show demonstrates taboo topics such as teen pregnancy, it is by no means demonstrating it in a way that says ‘Hey girls, you should totally have a baby when you’re a teenager because it will make your life all roses and good times for all of eternity!’ This show is about a single mom who has admittedly made one bad decision after the next, and is now trying to piece it together in her mid 30’s while dealing with a teenager, a younger child and his dead beat drug addict father, while battling her own struggles of alcohol and the never-ending life of living paycheck to paycheck (dangitsbethany 2013).

Those reviewers who looked to praise Mom for tackling sensitive subject matter without the syrupy coating of other comedic fare are commenting on the carefully crafted scripts, the tone of the show, the multi-dimensional characterizations and skillful performances of the actors. It is also worth noting however that their reviews were peppered with negative judgements, not about the show, but about those audiences who were openly hostile to the themes being addressed in the sitcom. While some reviewers cast aspersions about the taste formations and cultural distinctions of individual sitcom narratives, others cast aspersions about the taste formations and cultural distinctions of individual commentators. Hearing that other reviewers are ‘completely missing out on the plot’ because they ‘don’t understand the direction of the show’ could be framed as patronising as it betrays a sense of elitism or superiority. However, my point is simply that the show is divisive, in most part because of its depiction of intergenerational teen pregnancy. An unplanned teen pregnancy in an otherwise ‘good’ family is often presented as a problem for the individual in the news and entertainment media, whereas a cycle of teen motherhood is presented as a problem for society. As such, Mom is presenting individual narratives that themselves exploit widespread social anxieties, which in turn remind us about the hierarchy of hegemonic motherhood within and beyond the small screen.

Mom is referred to as ‘normal’ and ‘real life’ due in part to its depiction of difficult subject matter; and in terms of wealth demographics in the US. The working class experience is the majority of households based on earnings, savings, disposable income and property ownership. Indeed, living ‘paycheck to paycheck’ is a routine experience in the post-recession era as demonstrated by the increased demand for short-term, quick decision, payday loans (Consumer Affairs 2014). And although I would not go as far as to suggest that alcoholism, drug addiction or teen pregnancy is in any way the experience of the majority; if one considers relationship counseling and divorce rates then it becomes clear that family and relationship difficulties are common place within and beyond the socio-economically disadvantaged unit. Moreover, with respect to the comments related to ‘bad decision’ making it is worth noting that the children of alcoholics are four times more likely to develop an alcohol abuse problem than those without. We are told that ‘genetics, learned behavior, trauma and stress all do their part to perpetuate the cycle of alcoholism from generation to generation’ (NAC 2016). And if one considers that alcoholism can lead to financial turmoil, domestic violence, child abuse, abandonment and even the development of other substance abuse issues’ (ibid) then Christy’s mistakes and bad decision making can be understood in relation to her formative years and family dynamics, and in this way audiences appear to be reading the narrative against a broader lived experience.

I am not making any claims as to the reality, accuracy or verisimilitude of Mom. However the ways in which this programme picks up on these themes for comedic entertainment is fascinating when understood within the broader social and sexual landscape, a landscape evidently understood by the reviewers. The programme is clearly exploiting a number of familial themes that at present create concern and anxiety for educators, the medical profession and legislators, and it is enlightening to examine the ways in which audiences navigate their way through the popular comedy text in light of these anxieties.

Mom takes its comedy in to rather dark territory, with jokes about adultery, sexual harassment, absent and inappropriate fathers and adoption practices. And yet, it is the intergenerational cycle of teen pregnancy, poverty and addiction that is routinely commented on in the user reviews. Indeed, whether audiences applaud or abhor such depictions, it is clear that these themes, or rather, the ways in which the mothers in the show struggle to overcome them, forms the cornerstone of the comedy here. But while some read this as responding to a new trash aesthetic that exploits and glorifies intergenerational teen motherhood and the cycle of alcohol abuse, others read this as a zeitgeist phenomenon, perfectly in keeping with and responding to the broader social and sexual environment.

Mom presents audiences with three generations of teen mothers, and as such, the programme offers up complex, competing and contradictory maternal thoughts and practices, with each woman’s maternal endeavours going some way to helping us understand the norms and mores of appropriate motherhood as it shifts and ebbs from generation to generation. It depicts struggling and strained maternal figures who themselves mother and have been mothered, and it is the tensions between the generations that is at odds with much nuclear family sitcom fare. Mom represents the anxieties of intergenerational teen motherhood, alcoholism and poverty, but refuses to let dysfunction mean disgust. Combining employment, single motherhood, sexual desires and addiction is hard, and the programme does not shy away from that fact, but what the programme does so well (and why it is taboo for some and trailblazing for others), is present the daily work of mothering as a choice, one that is more difficult for some women than others, but a chore nonetheless. We are living in a pronatalist period dependent on the ideology of intensive mothering, and as such, Mom lifts the lid on the final familial taboo by reminding us that the long-term act of mothering is a choice. Women can at any time hand in their notice, leave the family home and walk away from their children in line with the growing numbers of mothers who leave their babies, toddlers, infants and adolescents each year (Jackson 1994, Hart 2008). Christy doesn’t leave. She makes mistakes, often and repeatedly, but she doesn’t leave. She is an active protagonist who strives to improve her maternal practices, not in line with the ideology of intensive mothering, but rather, for the betterment of her family. With this in mind it is for audiences to decide whether this unruly woman and carnivalesque mother stops short of being a poor maternal figure in the hierarchy of hegemonic mothering.

The situation comedy has a long history of depicting strong, capable mothers struggling at work and in the home, but what is clear is that generation after generation, these mothers become further removed from the ideology of intensive mothering that informs the ‘good’ mother archetype. While Lucy, Roseanne and Grace might be redeemed as ‘good enough’ maternal figures, some user reviews make it clear that Mom’s mums actually struggle to reach even this less elevated maternal mantle due to their teen pregnancies, although this might be understood by others as the appeal of the characters in question. After all, mothers in the audience might seek comfort in such struggling maternal figures when we ourselves are failing to live up to the ‘good’ mother myth in the wider social context. When women of the 1950s suffered from what Betty Friedan referred to as the ‘problem with no name’, a phrase coined in order to explain and explore the reason why housewives were feeling stifled rather than satisfied in their domestic roles, watching the character of Lucy trying to find a role in the entertainment world before returning to the family realm gave audiences a ‘good enough’ maternal depiction to route for. Likewise, when more and more women started entering the world of part-time work and the notion of the latch-key kid was introduced into common parlance, Roseanne offered a challenging depiction of ‘good enough’ mothering as the central protagonist vocalised her dissatisfaction with the maternal role whilst also working to provide for her children. Today, at a time when more mothers with young children are entering the world of work, in full-time employment and using the services of nurseries, child-minders, breakfast and after school clubs, Christy is seen struggling just to maintain the ‘good enough’ role. My point here is simply that the further removed women in the audience become from the maternal ideal, the further away our televisual counter-parts have to step beyond this archetype so that we might continue to find these mothers a somewhat relatable yet safely removed maternal depiction.