It wasn’t until I had my first son, a few years ago, that I noticed a big difference between having a baby on TV and having a baby in real life: My baby was always around. As in, I wasn’t able to dash out to meet the girls for lunch, like Miranda still did once Brady came along on Sex and the City. I did not have time to make my hair look as good as Rachel’s did on Friends right after she had Emma (her hair also looked amazing while having Emma, but that’s a story for another day). And I definitely could not jump in a time machine and fast-forward my life by several years—a trick which, looking back, turned out to be extremely handy for Parks and Rec’s Leslie Knope, mother of triplets.
In other words, my favorite shows have been exceptional at not preparing me for the realities of parenting for decades. And once I saw how wide the gap between actual motherhood and TV motherhood was, I felt like I was getting a message loud and clear: Nobody wants to watch a life that looks like yours. It’s grody, monotonous, and—no offense—it reminds us that all the interesting questions about you have already been answered. So please leave captivating television to us, and we’ll leave laundry and chicken nuggets and googling things about fevers to you.
I felt like I was getting a message loud and clear: Nobody wants to
watch a life that looks like yours.
Then came a wave of shows determined to clap back against that notion. And guess what? All of them are nominated for Golden Globes this weekend, which makes authentic mom-driven comedy feel pretty damn legitimate. Pamela Adlon, who created and stars in FX’s Better Things, is nominated for her performance as Sam, a divorced mother of three teenage daughters, who’s highly imperfect and highly empowered. Frankie Shaw, who created and stars in Showtime’s SMILF, is nominated for her performance as a single mother struggling to make ends meet while refusing to relinquish her dreams. SMILF is also nominated for best comedy series, as is Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, in which Rachel Brosnahan plays a 1950s housewife starting a new, controversial career as a stand-up comic—while dealing with the practicalities of divorce, children, money, and family.
Each of these shows unapologetically depicts mothers in full (white mothers, that is; we still need more parents of color onscreen). The kids are around. The kids have needs. The kids dent and push and blow up the storylines, just as they do in real life. It’s been a revelation for me as a viewer, and a revolution for the industry at large. I talked to the women behind each show—Adlon, Shaw, and Mrs. Maisel creator Amy Sherman-Palladino—about what it’s been like to bring the realities of parenting onto the small screen and into the light.
On why motherhood has been shuffled off-screen for so long…
AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO: I think a lot of shows write in kids because they represent family, but then the producers realize [child actors] can only work, like, three hours a day, and quickly everyone goes off to grandma’s or is doing homework at Susie’s house.
FRANKIE SHAW: I have gotten notes that suggest mom stuff is boring. There were people—not at Showtime, but at other networks—who wanted to push me into making my character, Bridget, a young, wild party girl who also has a baby. Bridget didn’t even go on a date in season one. When you have a kid that small, there’s constantly a low hum in your brain that’s always connected to your child. You’re always checking in. She couldn’t be out partying or dating—we’d be forgetting about Larry.
On why that whole “motherhood is boring thing” is a total fallacy…
PAMELA ADLON: I never dreamt that I would get to make a show about us, but I always saw me and my daughters very cinematically. When the four of us were together, I felt like, ‘Oh my God. We’re the Beatles. We’re Reservoir Dogs.’
SHERMAN-PALLADINO: Motherhood is built into my character development process. I couldn’t possibly do without it. [Editor’s note: Sherman-Palladino is also the creator of Gilmore Girls.] In Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Midge thought she aced the test when she got married and became a mother. That’s who she thought she was. Now, suddenly, she’s a single working mother with a dream that’s going to take her out of the house and away from her kids. In 1958. Shit gets real.
On building in real details from their childrearing experiences…
ADLON: We showed my character, Sam, going away for vacation and wishing she stayed home with her kids—I’ve done that. We’ve shown Sam having to confront people in her kids’ lives that are taking them down a bad road, which is scary. I cook for my kids all the time, and I wanted to show that. I make lasagna with all these layers, so we shot me making it. I gave the prop people my real recipe so they could get the ingredients.
SHAW: The baby days are all about survival—it’s this incredible time that’s usually not represented on TV. When we were pitching the pilot, people asked, “Can [the son character, Larry] be a four-year-old?” I said, “No, he has to be two.” I couldn’t have done this role had I not been a mom and experienced that toddler intimacy. The kids who play Larry aren’t acting—they’re being two.
On what all moms can relate to in their characters…
SHERMAN-PALLADINO: A mother can’t pursue something for herself without risking ignoring your family. Women still struggle with the myth of having it all—and that’s what I believe it is: a myth, like unicorns, or the claim that every woman looks good in a wrap dress.
ADLON: I have this theory that every mom is, like Sam, a single mom. It doesn’t matter if they’re married or not. They’re always doing everything and bringing home the bacon. It’s just the way it is.
SHAW: There can be this transference of purpose from oneself to one’s children when you become a mom, because our country isn’t set up to support women having a family and chasing a dream. We’re not supposed to do both. For me, when I had my son, I needed to feel useful outside of being a mom. So that became part of Bridget’s story. We leave this season and she doesn’t know exactly what she wants. But she knows she wants something.
