Father Knows Best....maybe not always.
One of the great things about generational differences is how parents over the last 30-40 years have outgrown the Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best and The Donna Reed Show TV family models of the 1960's. They may be modeling other things today, which may be another blog post, but those ridiculous TV shows put enormous pressure on the women of that genre to be the picture pretty wife, with picture pretty kids when the picture pretty (but dog-tired) dad walked in from a tough day at work. Then you get to our family. My mom was the picture pretty stay-at -home wife and worked at being that way when the big husband walked in the door. That worked great until she would have an exceptionally bad day and then let her husband be the big bad dad. She'd explain the disasters du jour, then hand him the hair brush or belt and he'd get to beat us. I was always a bit puzzled about the warm welcome and then the bad news scenario. Don't get me wrong, she was capable of