'Desperate Housewives' Playing Pregnancy Discrimination for Laughs

As I've been reviewing episodes of Desperate Housewives this season, I've become increasingly appalled by the Lynette Scavo/Carlos Solis plotline.

In a nutshell: Lynette, a mom of four, accidentally got pregnant and was planning to tell her boss Carlos -- her longtime friend and neighbor -- about her pregnancy. But before she could inform him, he told her he'd just passed over a talented woman for a promotion because she was pregnant and instead offered the post to Lynette, a job which would double her salary, as she's the sole breadwinner of her family of six, about to become a family of eight (she's having twins and her husband has gone back to college). She opted not to tell Carlos right away, but to make arrangements for her departure by training a (temporary) replacement and by landing a big account. However Carlos found out before Lynette was ready to tell him and pushed her out of the job, treating her as a betrayer of trust whose pregnancy had hurt his business. Then Lynette sued.

The story seems super-serious for the dramedy Desperate Housewives but has been played for laughs. For example, when Lynette's breasts swelled at the beginning of her pregnancy, Carlos thought she had gotten implants and urged her to show off her cleavage with a sexy, revealing dress (which he paid for) in an attempt to lure a male client. And now that Lynette is suing Carlos, his wife Gabby isn't speaking to Lynette and is, in fact treating her wretchedly, calling Lynette an "awful person" who let Carlos down by getting pregnant.



My column on Mommy Track this week centers on this storyline and, once you put aside the typical Wisteria Lane melodrama, asks what a woman in Lynette's situation is supposed to do.

What would you do in this situation?

'Desperate' Monday: The Coffee Cup

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the latest episode of Desperate Housewives.*

I was really, really ticked off after watching the latest Desperate Housewives episode, “The Coffee Cup.” Why? I couldn’t stop thinking about the treatment of Lynette Scavo by her so-called friends and neighbors Carlos and Gabby Solis because they learned that a working mother had the temerity to get pregnant and not terminate the pregnancy for their convenience. How selfish of Lynette, getting pregnant and not putting Carlos’ business deals first.

Lynette got pregnant – with twins no less – by accident, which, last time I checked, was not illegal and does not make you a horrendous employee, particularly when Lynette fully intended to go back to work after giving birth because she’s the only adult drawing a paycheck in her house, with her husband Tom re-living his college days.

Several weeks ago, Lynette was going to tell Carlos that she was pregnant, soon after she herself figured it out. But before she could tell him, Carlos started openly bragging to Lynette that he’d passed over another female employee for a promotion because she was pregnant. He – a man with two daughters cared for his at-home wife -- decided to give the promotion to Lynette. The new promotion would include a big pay bump, which Lynette, with her growing baby bump, desperately needed. Sure, Lynette could’ve come clean with Carlos anyway, given that he’d just admitted to discriminating against another employee because she’s pregnant and he’d have been put in a tenuous situation. But she didn’t. She needed the money.

During last night’s episode, Gabby found out that Lynette is four months pregnant. Did Gabby talk to her friend about the pregnancy and how Lynette and Tom feel about it? Even bother to learn that Lynette was unhappy at first with the news and contemplated ending the pregnancy?

Nope.

Instead, Gabby – the professional housewife who has no qualms about screwing with other people’s lives so she can spend her days shopping instead of home schooling -- stormed out of Lynette’s house, angry that Lynette “let Carlos down,” that Lynette wasn’t acting like a dedicated employee.

Carlos, in turn, morphed into the calloused piece of granite he was in season one: Telling Lynette she can either take the transfer he's offering her and move to Florida or quit, knowing full well she can’t take the transfer and that she's the only Scavo adult with a full-time job. This is how you treat a neighbor, as if Lynette planned the whole thing to screw Carlos over when, in reality, she was making arrangements to make sure Carlos would have adequate coverage for her three-month maternity leave, for which Carlos is required to give her by law?

Since last season, Desperate Housewives writers seemed interested in softening up Gabby and Carlos, bringing them down to earth, giving them feet of clay, turning Gabby into a “regular” mom and Carlos into a man who put his family ahead of other things, like opulent consumerism and cut-throat deal-making. (Remember when he wanted to work for a non-profit to help the blind? When he was an at-home dad? I liked that guy.)

Now the writers have entered a time-warp. The Solises are being portrayed as a heartless, selfish, craven jerks who care nothing for a family with whom they’ve been friends for years, acting as though Lynette’s pregnancy is something that was “done” to them, as if they have any say in the Scavos’ reproductive decisions.

I don’t know if there’s any turning back from this development, if indeed the writers have the Solis’ go forward with firing Lynette because she’s pregnant. It’s definitely ticked me off . . . more so than the incredibly lame story about Nick Bolen choking some nameless girl in a coffee shop and that he likely choked Julie Mayer. So don’t care about that.

Image credit: Ron Tom/ABC.

'Mad Men' Monday: The New Girl

The entire story of the latest Mad Men episode can be summarized by the last scene, when Don Draper arrived home from work to find his family already eating dinner in the kitchen. He asked for salt. His wife Betty said there was no salt, for his own good, given that his doctor has said he has high blood pressure.

"Why can't Daddy have salt?" asked their daughter Sally, who got a break from bartending duties this week.

After a pause, Betty replied, without looking at her husband, "Because we love him."

The camera turned to Don, who also did not look up or meet anyone's eyes. He didn't respond other than looking kind of ashen, chastened almost. Perhaps he was still unable to feel anything because he didn't believe he deserved the love of his wife, particularly when he'd just wrecked their car while on a bender with yet another in a string of mistresses, injured his arm (it was in a pathetic-looking sling) and blamed the car accident on a bad mix of blood pressure pills and alcohol. Could this be guilt, or simply that Don has become numb to everything?

This episode finally provided us with an answer about where Rachel Menken has been, the woman with whom Don had an intense emotional connection, to whom he confided his sad, sordid family history (though he left out the identity theft part). Rachel is now married. To someone else. Don discovered this while out at an illicit dinner with the odious Bobbie Barrett (she of the reciprocal sexual assaults two episodes ago) when he ran into Rachel who told him she's now Rachel Katz. After Rachel left, the heavier-than-usual drinking commenced, the usually chic/urban Don drinking straight out of the bottle began, all while driving to Bobbie's home by the beach so the two could have sex in the surf. Then the car crashed. And Don was fined $150 after police said his blood alcohol content was .15, twice today's drunk driving levels.

Just before the crash, while still reeling from the news that Rachel was married, Bobbie mused aloud, "Why is it so hard to enjoy things?"

"I don't feel a thing," Don said.

Previews for the upcoming episode indicate that Don continues to spiral downward with Bobbie and that there may be more displays of a violent edge to their relationship. Is this Don's way of becoming Tony Soprano, without New Jersey and the murdering?

In other Mad Men stories this week:

They revolved around the women of Mad Men at their various stages of life as they try to figure out who they are and what their roles should be.

At Sterling Cooper, a new college grad, Jane Siegel was being trained to become Don's secretary by the newly-engaged Joan Holloway. Jane seemed to be no-nonsense, even as she was informed by the usually vampy Joan to tone down her clothing and button up her blouse. (Pot, meet the kettle.) Joan, who'd been the office's most sexually attractive woman . . . though she's now going off the market, seemed put off by the "new girl's" overt sexual appeal.

Peggy's story, meanwhile, was a stunner as SHE was the one Don called to come to the police station, pay his fine, drop him off at a car rental office and take care of his injured mistress for the evening. Why would Peggy do all of this? Why would Don call her and not Roger, for whom he covered when he had a heart attack while messing around with a young woman? Because Peggy owed him. Don knew she'd had a baby and, when he learned that, on the day she was promoted to a copy writer that she also gave birth, he urged her to do what the doctors were recommending, give up the baby and move on. In a powerful flashback scene where Don sat at Peggy's postpartum bedside, he said: "Get out of here and move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened."

But, even though Peggy said helping Don was the right thing to do, his wily mistress Bobbie -- who deftly manages her famous comedian husband's career -- told Peggy that she'd get further in the business world if she stopped acting like a man, used the powers she has as a woman and to treat Don as an equal. I cheered when Peggy, who'd just been lightly chastised by Don in front of colleagues for not having a presentation ready (because she'd been cleaning up Don's mess!), stayed behind in Don's office, told him she needed the money she'd shelled out for his drunk driving fine and then said, "Thanks Don," pointedly, not, "Thanks Mr. Draper." Go Peggy. Fight the power.

I felt so sorry for Trudy Campbell because her husband is a cruel and slimy worm. The couple had been unsuccessfully trying to have a baby for a year and a half so they consulted a physician. After it was determined that Pete's goods were very lively (as we viewers already know because he impregnated Peggy), he began to gloat, thrilled that the problem wasn't him, but was his wife, who wore the mask of desperation of a woman who craves a baby but is betrayed by her body. I wonder if they'll ever close the loop and have Pete learn that he fathered a child. Then I hope Trudy kicks Pete out on his bony ass.

From the flashback scenes, we saw that Peggy's sister Anita was pregnant at the time Peggy gave birth, so, unless Anita's baby died, the little toddler we've been seeing in the Olson home isn't Peggy's, however there could always be some sort of hideous twist that lies ahead of us. (Such as if something happened to Anita's baby and the family decided to have Anita raise Peggy's baby as her own.)

What did you like/hate most about this episode? Think Don's going down a self-destructive, dark road? Think Peggy will succeed in beating back the cavemen at Sterling Cooper? Let's dish Mad Men.

Image credit: AMC.

Four for Friday: College Application Nuttiness, Kids’ Homework, HSM 3 and 'Baby Mama' Movie Trailer

Item #1: College Application Nuttiness

One of my favorite, down-to-earth columnists, Betsy Hart wrote a great piece tackling the issue of how much emphasis today’s parents place on their children getting into the “right” colleges, instead of trying to “raise persons of character who will eventually be able to thrive and prosper and grow and learn in almost any college – and really, any life – environment.”

“Especially in an ever-changing and dynamic economy,” Hart wrote, “it seems it’s really the student, not the college, that matters.”

Item #2: Kids’ Homework for Kids (Not Parents)

It’s your kid’s homework assignment. Not yours. And if your kid does poorly on it, it’s her fault, not yours.

That’s the message sent by a blog entry from the Washington Post’s “On Balance” parenting blog. Writer Julie Lenzer Kirk said that she took umbrage when her 10-year-old daughter said if she did poorly on an assignment it would be because her mom wouldn’t help her because her mom was working. Au contraire, Lenzer Kirk responded, adding that the kid would have to wait until she was available for help instead of waiting until the very last minute to work on it.

A quick read through the comments section was illustrative, including one comment from someone who says she’s a teacher and wrote: “Nothing bothers me more than a child who has every homework assignment completed perfectly, has no questions for me, yet fails a quiz because he or she doesn't really get it, because mom/dad essentially did the work.”

Item #3: 'High School Musical 3:' The Franchise That Will Not Die

I can sing and/or hum every song from the two “High School Musical” movies, as we are an all-HSM all-the-time household . . . that’s when we’re not being treated to the musical renderings of Hannah Montana or the Eldest Son’s pounding away on the drum set he got for Christmas.

And there’s no end in sight for the HSM madness as the announcement was made official this week that the major stars from the first two HSM films will indeed appear in "High School Musical 3" which is scheduled to be released in movie theaters this fall.

We’re all in this together . . .

Item #4: 'Baby Mama' Movie Trailer

“Baby Mama” is a new film slated for a spring release for which I just saw the trailer on the Entertainment Weekly web site. It looks like it has the potential to be darkly funny. It takes the idea of having someone else be your gestational surrogate and makes it (hopefully) humorous. That’s a tricky proposition. But the film stars Tina Fey, who has a small child herself. And Amy Poehler co-stars as Fey's fictional surrogate. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Watch the trailer here and judge for yourself.

Gestating While Celebritizing

Jennifer Lopez.

Jessica Alba.

Christina Aguilera.

Angelina Jolie.

Britney Spears.

Katie Holmes.

Marcia Cross.

Those are just a few of the names of celebs who’ve become mothers recently or are currently with child.

Starting from the early first weeks when most people try to keep a pregnancy under wraps for fear of miscarrying, paparazzi and celeb/Hollywood dirt diggers try to get the skinny on a potential baby bump that may or may not be growing on a celeb’s mid-section. This has become a virtual obsession that even makes it way from blogs and Hollywood gossip items to newspapers.

For several weeks this fall, for example, the media hounded Lopez – who’s pregnant with twins – about when she was going to announce that she was gestating. Why did we have to know about her pregnancy before she was was ready to announce it? Why have the media become so obsessed with the breeding habits of celebrities? Isn’t there something more compelling to cover?

The latest installment in the national obsession with pregnant celebs features two stories, one involving rumors that a TV star may (or may not) be growing a baby in her womb, and the other is about the 16-year-old sister of a troubled young celeb mother who is pregnant.

Oy to the vey.

For the love of Pete, can’t we just avert our eyes from these celebrity parenting train wrecks and simply leave other star moms and moms-to-be alone and simply worry about our own lives?

(Image from the Associated Press.)

If J. Lo. is Pregnant, Let Her Tell Us Herself

The internet and news media are abuzz with stories, based on the testimony of unnamed sources, that Jennifer Lopez is pregnant, possibly with twins. Those unconfirmed stories allege that she’s been undergoing infertility treatments including in vitro fertilization. (See the image to the left from another web site speculating on Lopez.)

Let me pose a question to those who are so quick to jump on the story: What if she’s NOT pregnant? What if she’s waiting to make an announcement until she’s certain the pregnancy is viable, so that if the pregnancy results in a miscarriage she won’t have to suffer in public? Why can’t people just wait?

This — in case you haven’t read previous rants on the same subject – is a pet peeve of mine, this tendency to hyper-scrutinize the bodies of child-bearing-age celebrities and to run oftentimes false rumors about a celeb who they think is pregnant. (The media and internet are currently musing about whether another celebrity is pregnant.)

Speaking as someone with experience with both in vitro fertilization and miscarriages, I can tell you that there’s no more terrifying time than the first trimester of a pregnancy for which you’ve been longing for years. So stories hypothesizing about whether a celeb is pregnant are not only premature, but they can potentially be cruel and intrusive.

It seems as though every few weeks or so, there’s some report breathlessly relayed over the internet about some star who might be pregnant. Half (or more) of those stories wind up being incorrect. It seems as though folks are in such a hurry to be the first to declare that someone’s pregnant, that they don’t care if they’re wrong or if they force a celeb to come forward before they’re comfortable to speak publicly about a pregnancy.

Nicole Kidman recently told Vanity Fair that she’d suffered a miscarriage early on in her marriage to Tom Cruise. Lucky for her, the internet and blogs weren’t a media force back then or else her personal tragedy would likely have been globally dissected for others’ pleasure.

The bottom line: What harm is there in waiting for a celebrity to announce her pregnancy? The media will still get months to analyze images of her growing belly, still be able to gossip about what she’s buying at chic baby boutiques and critique her gestational style. What’s the rush?

(Image from this web site.)

Thanks to Tom Brady . . .

I got to have an awkward, torturous conversation, highlighted by pretzel-like contortions at the dinner table last night when my kids asked me how New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (whose jersey they have, a poster of whom decorates my 6-year-old son Casey’s wall) can become a father without being married to the mommy.

After attempting to gracefully explain the situation without getting mired in graphic detail as my first grader, who still watches “Sesame Street,” was sitting at the table – and uncertain as to what type of information they were actually seeking – I punted:

“Um . . . Well . . . It’s complicated. He’ll be the dad, but he won’t live with the baby . . . What’s that? HOW did they make the baby? Well, Casey, they just did. It takes a mommy and a daddy to make a baby together . . . Why did they make the baby? I don’t know. Um . . . Could you pass the chicken please? And, hey buddy, wouldn’t you like some chocolate ice cream for dessert?”

When Casey is a bit older and mature enough to handle solid information (like the kind I’ve given my nearly 9-year-old daughter), I can explain the nuances of unmarried parenthood to him. Or maybe provide a fuller explanation as to why Lorelai Gilmore on the “Gilmore Girls” — which Abbey and I like to watch together — had a baby without being married either.

E-mail Meredith

No Wait . . . FOUR is the New Two, At Least Among the Affluent

While I was knee-deep in my 6-year-old’s “Star Wars” birthday party prep on Sunday, NPR ran a segment about how affluent families are having more kids than they used to. The site’s promo for a segment on “competitive birthing” among “posh moms” said, “The newest status symbol for the nation's most affluent families is fast becoming a big brood of kids.” That brood being comprised of about four offspring, despite declining birth rates overall.

I stumbled across the story – in which fellow New Englanders were interviewed -- after reading about it on several web sites, including Rice Daddies. Babble’s Strollerderby blog wryly quipped: “I blame the Pitt-Jolies for adopting all of those children.”

After listening to the segment though, I must admit, there are times when I too wonder about kid Number Four. Then I forcefully bash my head against a wall a few times (to simulate the experience of three years worth of sleep deprivation, akin to what kid Number Three generously provided his parents) and splash cold water on my face. Then I snap out of it. Unlike the families discussed in the segment, I don’t have nannies, parenting consultants and other assorted household staff taking care of the kids so I can look salon-fresh each day.

E-mail Meredith

Dude Looks Like He’s Pregnant: Male Columnist Wears ‘Empathy Suit’ and is ‘Pregnant’ for 24 Hours

If you’ve ever been pregnant, it’s likely that at one time or another, you wished that your spouse or partner could experience one iota of what you were experiencing. When I was pregnant with twins, and then years later with a single baby, there were many, many moments when I wanted The Spouse to be the one who was pregnant, so he would stop telling me that all of my pregnancy woes were in my head and that I should stop reading, “What to Expect What You’re Expecting,” which he thought was putting bad ideas into my head. (Yes, I did hit him with the book after he uttered that little chestnut of empathetic support.)



Well, a former male UMass colleague of mine, donned one of those empathy bellies in an attempt to try to figure out what his wife – who’s currently pregnant – is experiencing. Boston Herald writer Darren Garnick wrote about his “pregnancy” in a column and in a 24-hour pregnancy journal. He also agreed to field my snarky questions about wearing the “empathy suit.”


Meredith: Why on earth did you decide this would be a good idea?

Darren Garnick: I thought it would amuse my wife, Stacy, who is mere days away from giving birth. Of course, the journalistic curiosity also always burns for an unusual opportunity like this one. I did not do it to prove any point or to show how “sensitive” I allegedly am. Depending on the day, I don’t always wear the “sensitive” brand very well.

Meredith: Did you REALLY think that putting on a suit would give you an inkling as to what your wife’s going through?


Garnick: An inkling, yes. A complete understanding, no. I never realized how tough it is to reach things when you’re pregnant or how quickly standing up can feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. But I am absolutely under no delusions that I “know what it’s like to be pregnant.”

Meredith: What surprised you the most about your time in the suit?


Garnick: Besides my sleepless night? This exercise evolved to be just as much about sociology as women’s physiology. I was surprised by how most strangers I encountered treated my appearance like it was no big deal. I mean, look at how ripe I look in so me of those pictures posted in my 24-Hour Pregnancy Diary.


I suppose this is an encouraging sign that Bostonians aren’t as rude as we think we are.

I wasn’t trying to do the Tyra Banks-fat suit thing here. Especially since I probably weight the equivalent of five or six Tyra Banks already. But I did feel self-conscious and awkward walking around with fake breasts.



What really stunned me later was learning – in a phone interview – that the Empathy Belly company received death threats when the product was first introduced in the early 1990s. Some rednecks were angry about schools allegedly forcing teenaged boys to wear the suits in sex ed classes. According to belly creator Linda Ware, no one is ever forced to “become pregnant.” The curriculum stresses participants must be volunteers, she says.



Meredith: Do you secretly wish you could be a woman, so you could actually experience the mind-blowing pain of labor and the glories of pregnancy, like stretch marks?


Garnick: I’m pretty happy with the stuff God gave me, but would be proud to be an “Honorary Boston Mommy.” Do you have any certificates suitable for framing?


Meredith: Now that you’ve experienced “faux pregnancy,” are you going to try to experience “faux labor?”

Garnick: No thank you! I’ve been in the delivery room once, and am looking forward to the next time. But I’m thrilled with my role cheering from the sidelines.

Given that Darren did wear a pregnancy suit in public, for all the world to see -- and then documented it online -- I think that’s sufficient grounds for me to bestow upon him the dubious honor of being my first ever “Honorary Mommy.”

E-mail Meredith

(Image from the Boston Herald.)

Three for Thursday

Item #1: ESPN’s “Outside the Lines”

ESPN ran an intriguing segment on Mother’s Day about how pregnant college athletes are sometimes forced to forgo their scholarships or feel pressure to have an abortion if they become pregnant in order to keep their sports scholarship. A University of Nevada athletic director interviewed in the piece likened pregnancy to an injury from which an athlete will recover.

Typically, when a college athlete gets hurt, his or her scholarships aren’t typically revoked, she said. Pregnancy, this director argued, should be considered as a temporary medical condition. A University of Pittsburgh law school professor added that revocation of scholarships based on pregnancy is “a blatant violation of Title IX,” referring to the landmark federal legislation prohibiting gender discrimination in high school and college sports.

Watch a snippet of the ESPN segment here.

UPDATE: As a result of the ESPN segment, the NCAA will review its policy for scholarship athletes who become pregnant, the New York Times reports.

Item #2: Snarky Parents Now Have Multiple Online Options

Not so long ago, I sang the praises of the snarky parenting web site Babble, which has all sorts of anti-sanctimommy features that just tickle me silly.

Now they’ve got competition in the form of Offsprung whose motto is, “Your life didn’t end when you became a parent.” Offsprung offers a number of blogs and includes a feature called “Ask Alternadad,” written by Neal Pollock, author of Alternadad where he fields parenting questions, like this one:

“Dear Alternadad, My son has recently graduated up to the next size car
seat, but alas I have trouble fitting it into my ‘hipster’ car, a
convertible Camaro. I can’t stand the idea of neutering myself and driving
a minivan. What words of wisdom do you have to avoid such a
terrible fate?

Jeff N

Jeff:

I could have a robot answer this one for me. In robot voice, say it with
me: DO NOT GIVE UP YOUR BELOVED CAR JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A KID. If you were having your third kid, I’d say make some concessions, but if it’s just one, you’ve got to find some way to squeeze it into the car.”

Item #3: What Happens in Vegas . . .

. . . stays with my EIGHT-YEAR-OLD? My son Jonah received an invitation in the mail to “take advantage of great rates this summer” and to enjoy some Golden Nugget Las Vegas nights.

Apparently Vegas is targeting a new demographic.

E-mail Meredith

Three for Thursday

Item #1: NM Law to Help Breastfeeding Mom

New Mexico now has a law mandating that employers provide “a private and clean space other than a bathroom for their breastfeeding employees” to use when expressing their breastmilk at work, according to the Alamogordo Daily News.

The law doesn’t make employers pay women for any extra time they might take while pumping their breastmilk which exceeds their allotted break time.

But at least breastfeeding moms are getting some public support for a change, as opposed to ridicule and scorn.

Item #2: The Fertility Diaries

The April issue of Redbook features the first installment of a series the magazine is calling, “The Fertility Diaries.” It follows three friends from the Cleveland area: One woman who was anxious about her pregnancy after her previous one resulted in the birth of a newborn son who died from SIDS, one who was undergoing infertility treatments after having a miscarriage, and their friend who got pregnant the first month she tried to conceive.

As someone with experience in the second scenario and saw friends conceive with apparent ease, I can relate to this delicate series on how to balance friendship, heartache and anxiety when pals are coping with different experiences on their journey to become parents.

Item #3: Hoping Not to Have a Flop Sweat Incident on Live TV

In order to plug The Book — “A Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum” – I’m scheduled to appear on New England Cable News on Monday morning at 8:45, unless a major news event bumps me. Pray that I keep my cool and don’t start speaking in tongues on live TV.

Oh, and I’ve got a new column in the April issue of Parents and Kids about whether or not The Spouse and I are done with that baby business, as well as a piece on Mommy Track’d about how the news media has been portraying working moms (fairly, or ghastly).

E-mail Meredith