Parenthood is starting to hit freakishly close to home with some of its storylines, tackling issues I frequently discuss with other parents who’re smack-dab in the midst of raising kids, like not having a life outside of the kids’ activities and fretting that while educators and child-rearing “experts” harass parents to get hyper-involved in their children’s lives, as those children grow older, parents are then chastised for overstepping and interfering.
This week’s installment, “Date Night,” was, like last week’s episode, fantastically on the mark.
On paper, it sounds like a dreadfully boring topic to address on a TV show: A couple having enormous difficulties trying to find time for one another amidst the craziness of modern parenting. I remember back in the late 1980s, one of the first episodes of thirtysomething focused on Hope and Michael Steadman struggling to find time to have lives of their own, specifically trying to find a babysitter. And they had only one kid, a baby, and that was before the advent of helicopter parents and over-the-top kids’ extra-curricular schedules.
But the way in which Adam and Kristina Braverman dealt with their inability to find time to be alone together, though it sounds trivial, rang frightfully true. As Kristina stood there, staring at that overscheduled family calendar on their fridge and negotiating with Adam over who’s going to take which kid to what thing, there seemed to be no room for an adult existence, an adult relationship. The situation was made even more fraught with emotion when Kristina’s friend, who also has an autistic son, told her that 80 percent of parents who have an autistic child divorce because they don’t make time for one another.
When Adam’s brother Crosby gave him crap about not having shown up to play basketball in months and bugging him to attend a party celebrating a new CD, Adam responded sarcastically that he’d “pencil” all that in.
It was the same deal with Joel, the reluctant at-home dad, who is resentful that he has no life outside of taking care of his kindergartner daughter. His own interests and time seem to have been sacrificed at the altar of fatherhood.
Meanwhile, Crosby, whom Adam accused of “half-assing” his job as a father, saw what was happening to his siblings with their children and didn’t think he had what it takes to be a good parent according to new standards which dictate that you’re never off the clock, as Crosby was told, and that it’s extremely challenging to have a life. Even Jasmine’s mother told Crosby that she disapproved of how her daughter was living her life — traveling around with her dancing company and following her dreams — instead of being home with her son and providing “stability.”
What happened to the parents on this show is that they wound up “half-assing” their own lives, working hard to squeeze in time and steal brief moments, like Adam and Kristina having to go, while extremely overdressed, to a lame pirate-themed restaurant after missing their date at a nice place when they let their daughter bail as their babysitter, or wolfing down cake while sitting atop the front of their car, or Joel stressing out over what he’s going to do for his kindergartner’s Hobby Day at school because he feels pressure to wow her classmates.
No wonder Crosby was scared.
From the teens’ perspective this week: Haddie made peace with her mother, apologized for rebuffing her advice on her campaign for junior class president the prior week, and actually solicited help from a bunch of people ranging from Amber, Sarah and her mother. The way this storyline was tidily wrapped up felt just that, too tidy. I realize that there’s only so much time in any given episode to devote to different stories, but I was hoping for more on this one, something more about a daughter’s ambition and desire to put her own stamp on things versus her mother, who put her ambition on the shelf while she’s home with her children.
By contrast, the brief amount of time devoted to Drew intensely feeling the absence of his father as he tests the waters of the dating scene was just right. After Drew heeded his mother’s advice and tried to kiss his science project partner, he was humiliated when she didn’t, as his mother had suggested, harbor romantic feelings for him. We haven’t seen much of Drew lately so it was nice for him to have some time in the limelight, however scant.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Oct 06, 2010 @ 13:00 EST5EDT
