Uncle John’s Presents Mom’s Bathtub Reader (32 page)

If a man is bald, it’s a myth that he inherited the hair loss problem from his mother’s side of the family. Baldness is a very complicated genetic trait that may be inherited from either the mother’s or the father’s side of the family (or both). And it can even skip generations. So, don’t blame mom!

8. Seems to be true

French scientists have found in zebra fish the genes that run a body clock are similar to the ones found in humans. They believe they’ll find similar
genes controlling the human body clock (which controls whether or not you’re badly bothered by night work or a transatlantic flight) in mom’s eggs, which means a baby inherits jet lag from mom’s genetic material.

9. True

Despite conflicts, complicated emotions, and even matrophobia (a fear of becoming like mom), a Pennsylvania State University study found that by the time they were middle-aged, from 80 to 90 percent of women reported good relationships with their mothers.

10. False

The numbers on the relationship between mom and her kids are strong:

•
88 percent of adults say their mother has had a positive influence on them.

•
92 percent say their current relationship with their mother is positive.

•
88 percent of all mothers say their family appreciates them enough.

Put on your overalls and test yourself on these sitcom working moms.

A
s time marched on, more TV moms were marching into the workplace and facing even more complicated issues. Single motherhood, financial burdens, turning 40—playing a mom on TV was no picnic!

The Show:
Roseanne
(1988–1997)

This show didn’t shy away from the harsher realities of family life. Blue-collar Roseanne Conner (played by Roseanne) took low-paying jobs to make ends meet. Working in a beauty parlor, a factory, and a diner, Roseanne braved annoying managers and snarky coworkers. She and her husband, Dan, struggled to raise their three kids and keep food on the table. Roseanne’s kids were constantly in trouble. Sarcastic, loud, opinionated, and overweight, Roseanne was far from being a “perfect” mother. But she was a loving mom who told it like it was. (Despite the fact that this family spouted TV’s most brilliant wisecracks, they couldn’t seem to use their smarts to get ahead.)

Fun Fact:
Roseanne’s oldest daughter, Becky, had a lot in common with Darrin from
Bewitched.
Wonder why? No, they didn’t both have witches in the family. Becky was
played by two different actresses and Darrin by two different actors during each series’ original run.

The Show:
Murphy Brown
(1988–1998)

In 1992, Murphy Brown (played by Candice Bergen) became famous as the tough, impatient TV newswoman who’d managed to tick off Vice President Dan Quayle. And he wasn’t a character on television! What had Murphy done that caused a real, powerful politician to wag his finger at her?

She was single and pregnant and had decided to keep her baby. In the summer of 1992, during a speech in San Francisco, California, Quayle announced that Murphy was glamorizing unwed motherhood and mocking the importance of fathers. With that speech,
Murphy Brown
became the eye of a media storm on family values. By the time the storm blew over, both sides seemed the worse for wear. Murphy
did
have trouble adjusting to unwed motherhood and so did her ratings, which began to sink. As for Dan Quayle, he lost his job in the 1992 election.

Fun Fact:
Avery Brown, Murphy’s young son, was played by Haley Joel Osment. Luckily he didn’t start seeing dead people until his breakout performance in
The Sixth Sense.

The Show:
Cybill
(1995–1998)

Finally, a sitcom for women over 40! An unconventional comedy,
Cybill
took an unflinching and funny look at the problems confronting an older mom who happens to be an aging, twice-divorced actress looking for work in Los
Angeles. Cybill Sheridan Robbins Woodbine (played by Cybill Shepherd) had two headstrong, nearly grown daughters (one from each marriage) and two clingy ex-husbands who never got out of her life.

Fortunately for Cybill, she had her sophisticated, boozy friend Maryann (played by Christine Baranski) to confide in. The friendship between the two women and their adventures proved hilarious and also poked fun at popular ideas about youth and aging. Even over 40 with a nearly empty nest, Cybill showed that a mom’s life could still be very complicated and very funny.

Fun Fact:
Cybill Shepherd got her big break when director Peter Bogdanovich spotted her on a magazine cover. Bogdanovich went on to cast her in her first big role as Jacy in
The Last Picture Show.

George Sand and Frederic Chopin made beautiful music together, until her kids got in the way

S
he didn’t care for feminists, but she’s been called the world’s first liberated woman. She was a French baroness related to Louis XVII, but she considered herself a woman of the people. She was famous for her scandalous love affairs. Men adored her, yet few friends thought her beautiful or feminine. She was best known for dressing like a man and constantly indulging a taste for smelly cigars. She was France’s famous romantic, but she was actually a hardheaded working mother whose practical business sense supported a wild, bohemian life.

This contradictory mom was Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin Baronesse Dudevant, Aurore to her friends. You may know her better as George Sand, the wildly popular and prolific French novelist. Sand was a romantic who believed that life was best fulfilled by the perfect passion. Her famous love affair with Frederic Chopin seemed perfect. But it was battered by a force that even strong-minded Sand couldn’t control—her own children.

Aurore began her life the same way she lived it—as a scandalous romantic. The romantic part was that Papa
Maurice was an aristocrat who fell for Mama Sophie, a pretty but penniless dancer. The scandalous part was that in July 1804, less than a month after her parents’ marriage, Aurore was born.

When Aurore was four, her father fell from a spirited horse and broke his neck, the nineteenth-century equivalent of a car wreck. At that point, Maurice’s wealthy mother, Madame Dupin, kept Aurore at the family château, Nohant, in the French countryside and sent Sophie packing. Then strict, straight-laced Madame Dupin, aided by convent schools, somehow managed to raise the rebellious, headstrong young woman who would one day shock Paris.

Had her grandmother lived, she probably would have forced Aurore into an unhappy, arranged marriage. As it was, Madame Dupin died before she got the chance. So, at age 18, Aurore made her own choice, Baron Casimir Dudevant. The marriage may have been voluntary, but that didn’t mean it was happy.

Shortly after their first child, Maurice, was born, Aurore began to long for some good adult conversation (a familiar wish of new mothers). She also discovered her husband wasn’t up for more than discussing cows or the health of his hunting dogs. He didn’t care for music, art, or literature—all as vital as food and drink to the brilliant Aurore.

Quick-witted as she was, it didn’t take Aurore long to notice that marriage vows didn’t stop some men from seeking more perfect unions. Baron Dudevant, for example, had trouble keeping his mitts off the maids. If husbands
could take a liberal interpretation of their marriage vows, then why not the wife? It should come as no surprise that when her second child, daughter Solange, was born, rumors persisted that the baron wasn’t her biological pop.

Aurore protested that she was seeking a soul mate and had higher aims than mere physical pleasure. As it became more and more evident that the baron was hardly the “one,” the unhappy couple separated in 1831. Aurore took her little ones to Paris, and since independence (especially with two kids) cost money, she took up writing. A year later her novel
Indiana
was published. The story of a wife struggling to escape the clutches of a tyrannical husband (who had more than a passing resemblance to Baron Dudevant) was a huge best-seller, and Aurore became a notorious celebrity under the name George Sand.

Sand supported her family and the estate at Nohant with the writing of more than 70 novels and a dozen plays. Readers were thrilled with her books, which asserted that marriage made slaves of women and (
mon dieu!
) explored female sexual desire. They were even more fascinated by the boldness of the author who enjoyed a good cigar and (
quelle horreur!
) wore men’s clothing so she could prowl around Paris without being harassed.

“I ask the support of no one,” Sand declared. “Neither to kill someone for me, gather a bouquet, correct a proof, nor to go with me to the theater. I go there on my own, as a man, by choice; and when I want flowers, I go on foot, by myself, to the Alps.” So much for
The Rules.
Sand wasn’t coy, but men flocked to her anyway—and often had their hearts broken.