Sue and Mike Heck, on "The Middle" (photo: ABC TV)
So, I was going to write about homework this week, but that will have to wait, because an extraordinary thing happened last night, sometime between 8:00pm and 8:30pm, while I was watching the ABC-TV sitcom, “The Middle.” I say extraordinary because this involved a TV dad, who was not Bill Cosby or Bill Bixby (is anyone old enough to remember “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father”? No? Yes? God, I loved him. He reminded me of my dad). This involved a TV dad who … wait for it … did the right thing. He stood up. He not only did a sweet thing for his geeky teen daughter, but he went the extra step and said the right thing to a mean girl’s dad.
Sitcom dads don’t do this, as we all know. They’re usually kind of useless. Unless they’re Bill Cosby. And Bill Bixby doesn’t even count because “Courtship” was not a sitcom.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
“The Middle,” for those of you who don’t watch it, stars Patricia Heaton (formerly Debra Romano on “Everybody Loves Raymond”) and Neil Flynn (formerly The Janitor on “Scrubs”) as Frankie and Mike Heck, working class, always-behind-the-eight-ball, fast-food eating parents of three kids. There’s a lot to like about “The Middle.” If you watch the ABC promo videos you’ll hear stuff about it being “real.” It’s about a “real Midwestern family,” which to my sensitive East Coast urban-ish ears sounds like that sort of “Real America” jargon the right wingers bat around at election time (I’m talking to you, Sarah Palin!). Because the “real” part of the Heck family has nothing to do with the fact that they live in Indiana, and everything to do with the fact that they actually say real things about raising kids, and do real things that raising kids drives you to do (like throwing bags of frozen brownies at them as they race for the bus, because your effort to get organized on school mornings lasted all of one week).
There was the time, last season, when Frankie locked herself in a dingy bathroom at the car dealership where she works, to escape for 15 minutes the constant call of her boss, her colleagues, and her family via cellphone (The police, when they came to inform her of some mayhem she missed: “You shut your phone? You’re the mom! You can’t shut your phone.”). There was the time, just a few weeks ago, when Mike said about his oldest, Axl, a hormone-ravaged highschooler who wears boxer shorts around the house and drinks OJ out of the container (I’m paraphrasing): “I think he might be an idiot.” It was funny, and cringe-y, but mostly funny. I mean, come on, let’s be honest: who hasn’t thought that their kids just might be a little… not so terrific? You know, kind of idiotic?
Anyway, last night. Part of the plot involved Sue, the Heck’s middle-school-age daughter (played by Eden Sher), an character you can’t help but love for how clueless (yet smart) and hopeless (yet hopeful) she is. She’s every middle-school mess you ever felt like, braces and stringy hair and all. I love her. In this episode, Sue is befriended by a cool/mean girl, Shannon. Mike drives Sue, Shannon and Sue’s other geeky friend to the movies, and ends up staying with them, a few rows back, because he doesn’t trust them to be alone with boys. At one point, when Sue goes to the restroom to get Twizzlers out of her braces (love her), Shannon confides to the other geeky friend that she’ll be invited to a Saturday sleepover. But not Sue.
Mike, outraged and upset, rails about the unfairness to his wife, who tells him (I’m paraphrasing), “you didn’t know girls were this mean? Why do you think we eat so much chocolate?” There’s nothing, she tells him, that he can do.
But there is something he can do. He can make up for the party Sue doesn’t even know she’s not invited to by offering to watch one of the Twilight movies with her on a Saturday night. That would be sitcom-perfect — you can hear the “awwww…”, right? Except it doesn’t end there. Shannon calls — the audacity of meanness! — to ask Sue if she can borrow a sleeping bag, supposedly for a last-minute family camping trip.
This is where it gets good. Mike offers to drive the sleeping bag over to Shannon’s, and confronts her dad at the door. This is what would happen in most sitcoms, and most of us would be fine with it: Mike would say, “gee, that was mean. My daughter’s home thinking this is her friend, and Shannon’s not her friend at all.” And the other dad would be all, “yeah, girls, what can you do, right?” Maybe the two would have a beer or something. And the nice part, the Bill Cosby part, would be Mike going home and watching Twilight and never telling Sue that she’s been dissed by her so-called friend.
Here’s what did happen. When the two dads get into it, the other father does indeed say (I’m paraphrasing!), “Listen, I can’t tell my daughter what to do! That’s not my job.” But Mike says, after a pause and with a twist of his lips, “You know, yes, it is. It is our job.”
Ya see? It is our job. The girl was being a snob and mean, and even if Mike went back and never said a thing to Sue (he didn’t, they just talked about Twilight — “so… he’s the one with the abs?”), he said what he needed to say to Mr. Shannon’s Dad: When are kids are headed down a path that’s going to make them mean, and a bully, and a braggart — and they sure as hell might; sometimes they’re idiots, right? — you say something. Because that’s our job.
Denise, I agree with you. I’ve told other parents before, “No, I think we DO need to step in..” when they accuse me of meddling. When kids are mean, they need to know they’re being mean, and then fix it. How are they supposed to know unless we tell them? They eventually have to come out of their “the world revolves around me” phase and become nice people. I agree… it’s our job
RIGHT! And who else is going to tell them? It is absolutely our job. We may not always be able to control what they do the information, but we certainly can and MUST tell them. What I think we forget is that teenagers often still care what their parents think – even if it dosnt seem that way. And by not telling them, we give them the impression that it is ok. It is no different than the compliant kid who goes along with the bully – saying nothing. Except such behavior is much more egregious from adults. It’s not eay, but part of our responsibilty as parents.
Right on Sally & Claudine — I tell my son all the time if he is being an idiot or mean. I think it is our job to call kids out and if more adults told their children this there would be more “adults” that would be cool to hang out with. As I tell my son that I am the only one that is going to tell him the truth about his behavior because that is my job, others are going to talk behind his back or do worse.
Ya know, there was a time when any or many adults (I mean adults that are NOT the parents) would call a teenager or child on his or her bad behavior and I think that made a difference – the whole “it takes a village” thing. But these days, no one dares to tell another person’s child what to or not to do. I think that has negatively affected our teenagers and our culture. So many kids realize no one is watching their behavior and feel they can get away with anything (or maybe they think their behavior is OK). And too often they can. If my kid was misbehaving I would not have a problem with another adult calling him on it (politely and firmly, I would hope). In fact, I think it would resonate more than if it came from me or his dad. After years of saying nothing to cursing teenagers in playgrounds, I once mustered up the courage to ask a teenager at a local playground to stop spitting, as my child plays in that sand (he and his friends were on the swings seeing how far they could spit). To my surprise, the teenager immediately straightened up and apologized, even though it must have been a bit embarrassing for him. I knew that moment that he knew his behavior was wrong, that his parents had taught him that, and that my saying something made him realize what he was doing. He was not a bad kid and he was no worse off (if not better off) for my having said something. Just a little bit of village, I guess.
I have jumped in and told a 5-year-old that he was being manipulative and that his behavior was unacceptable, and then explained to my son how the other boy was manipulating him and how he was being mean-spirited. Now I get a lot of joy hearing my son (now 6) say “don’t try to manipulate me” correctly and at appropriate times! We also talk often about choosing good friends and opting not to play with kids who aren’t nice to others. This is a hard lesson that needs to be taught and discussed at an early age. Even adults have trouble with that one!
Thank you! I enjoy that show too when I can catch it. I love any show that shows those good, wholesome mid-westerners (oh me!) being real– esp now that I’m really an east coaster. I’m enraged by all the movies and sitcoms that make fathers out to be just “another boy.” Goofing around and unable to take parenting/life seriously. Because as you say, yes, it is your job to take parenting seriously.
Don’t forget Brian Keith in Family Affair (and yes, I loved Courtship as well).
[...] what’s funny? It’s not most sitcoms (ba-da-bum!). What’s funny is that after the last time I wrote about the CBS TV sitcom “The Middle,” my friend Sally wrote to agree with me, and also to wonder how it was that I even managed to sit [...]
[...] have a varsity letter from high school in … badminton. Go ahead, laugh. Like Sue Heck from the TV show The Middle, I joined the sport that didn’t have tryouts or cuts. My friend Janet and I played fifth [...]