'Parenthood' Muses on Working Parenthood & Grandparents with Financial Woes

Parenthood has been on the uptick these days – with the exception of the fact that, no matter how much I’ve tried to forget that Lauren Graham played Lorelai Gilmore, I just can’t (her character went out with her daughter's English teacher, went back to school as an adult, has daughter who, according to previews, falls asleep with a guy overnight just like Lorelai's daughter did in a gazebo that looks like it was lifted from the Stars Hollow town green).

Part of the reason why I’ve been enamored of the drama as of late is its treatment of working parenthood, which it addressed in two recent episodes, the latest of which I lauded in my Pop Culture column on Mommy Tracked.

The writers have also, FINALLY, started paying some attention to the grandmother, Camille, who’s been largely wallpaper up until the last episode. (Episode recap is up on CliqueClack TV.)

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Good Wife' Stays Solid, 'Grey's Anatomy's' Parent Issues & 'Parenthood' Turning a Corner?

Good Wife Remains Solid

Okay Good Wife writers. You’ve got me.

My frequent complaint about your freshman drama has been that I’d prefer to see more scenes depicting the life of a political spouse/family in the wake of a humiliating sex scandal committed by the public official (a la the Spitzers, Sanfords, Clintons, Edwardes, et al) rather than load it up with legal procedural stuff. If I want to watch a garden variety lawyer show, I could go elsewhere. It’s not that I mind the legal cases, it's just that I didn’t want them to overwhelm the unique twist that makes The Good Wife different from other dramas.
That was the fear I had when The Good Wife seemed to be focusing more on getting to the truth about a criminal case or on how to deftly maneuver in the courtroom in order to secure a particular judgment.

But, overall, I have to say, the writers have done a good job of balancing the law and the personal life. Even though the latest episode “Doubt” – in which the disgraced, house-arrested Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) did not even appear – focused largely on a murder case, it did so in a way that was smart and intriguing by looking at the case from the perspective of the jury. Gold stars for not ending the episode in a rosy, optimistic note for Julianna Margulies’ Alicia Florrick’s team.

Grey’s Ponders Mixing Maternity & Medicine

Mixing maternity and medicine has been a semi-regular theme on Grey’s Anatomy since day one. We’ve known from the first handful of episodes that Meredith Grey sustained emotional damage from a childhood in which her parents divorced, her father essentially abandoned her and her mother, a successful surgeon, virtually blew her off and always chose medicine over Meredith.

In a 2007 episode, Meredith was assisting in an operation on a child both of whose parents were career-oriented and hardly ever at home. As a result, the girl bonded with her nanny more so than with her own parents. Meredith remarked that people with big-time careers should just get a cat instead of a kid because the kid needs time and attention from a mom or a dad. However the lead surgeon in the room, Miranda Bailey, a new mom, took umbrage.

Years later, Bailey, who’s now a divorced mom, has had her ups and downs with the child/career thing but seems to be in a good place right now just as other characters with high-pressure careers -- Callie Torres, McSteamy, McDreamy and Meredith -- are contemplating parenthood. I explored how Grey’s has been handling the issue of doctors having kids in my weekly Pop Culture column on Mommy Tracked.

'Parenthood' Enters the Family Drama Arena

The premiere episode of Parenthood, which aired last night on NBC was, like most pilots, overloaded with storylines designed to introduce each character and place them into some kind of context. Once the introductory business is out of the way, the real test of whether a show's got staying power is by watching the next few episodes. I'll be looking to see whether the show can and will delve into what makes each of these characters tick. But I think it has promise.

That being said, in my Pop Culture column on Mommy Tracked I pleaded with the show's writers to NOT -- I repeat, NOT -- go down the road of cliche when it comes to working moms and will refrain from demonizing them. There's this one character who's a workaholic lawyer mom, Julia Braverman-Graham (Erika Christensen), and because she's always fielding work calls, messing with her BlackBerry and working long hours, her young daughter openly favors her at-home dad. A similar dynamic was played out on Brothers & Sisters a few years ago with the Sarah Wheedon Walker (Rachel Griffiths) character, and Sarah was threatened with the loss of custody of her children during her divorce proceedings because of the long hours she worked. Brooke Shields' movie mogul character in Lipstick Jungle also suffered similarly for trying to thrive in a tough career while raising children.

Meanwhile, over on CliqueClack TV, I compared Lauren Graham's iconic role of Lorelai Gilmore in the Gilmore Girls to her new Parenthood character, Sarah Braverman. While I initially found that there are more differences than similarities between the two characters, after watching the preview below which NBC just put on its web site and seeing that Sarah's potentially interested in dating her 16-year-old daughter's teacher . . . well that scenario was played out in the first season of Gilmore Girls. (Remember Max Medina? You can refresh your memory with repeats of season one currently airing on ABC Family.) If Sarah starts dating her daughter Amber's high school English teacher, there's a distinct possibility that I may have to reassess my conclusion about just how much Sarah and Lorelai have in common.



What did you think about the Parenthood premiere?

Got Fingers Crossed for 'Parenthood'

Loved, loved, loved the 1989 film Parenthood starring Steve Martin. Loved how it covered parenthood from the beginning (with pregnancy, infancy and childhood), all the way through being the parent of grown adults. It provided a wonderful depiction of parenthood as a continuum where, on the one hand, you're doing everything for your young child and coaching his Little League team, and on the other hand you're dealing with an adult offspring by providing hands off support, wisdom and babysitting services.

So I'm left to wonder if the new NBC dramedy Parenthood -- starring Peter Krause, Lauren Graham and Craig T. Nelson -- will be as good as the movie, or, perhaps, even better because it can delve into issues with more depth? Will it be a different, more drama-focused version of Modern Family without becoming, say, a Brothers & Sisters sans a vineyard?

NBC has finally released some longer clips of the show, which premieres March 2.

What do you think?