I'll never be June Cleaver. To be honest, I never even saw an episode of "Leave it to Beaver", but through some sort of mass-media osmosis I am painfully aware that Barbara Billingsley's pearl-and-dress-wearing character is the epitome of a mother and wife.
You can send me to every charm school -- which my mom actually suggested once -- and it wouldn't matter. Make me balance a million books on my head, and lock me in a room with Emily Post and Judith Martin. It wouldn't change a thing. As the Big Guy Upstairs said to Moses: "I am, what I am" and by the "big guy upstairs", I don't mean Popeye.
The way I cope with any uncomfortable reality is by engaging in Walter-Mitty fantasies not of how my life is different but how I believe other people really live. So in the case of falling short of being the perfect mother and wife, I have convinced myself that these are just some of the things that went down in the Cleaver household when the cameras were not rolling:
1. When Wally did not get into Stanford, June replied "it's not a good fit for you any way. Only over achievers go there".
2. When Beaver apologized for making them run late, June said "I'm not your effing priest and I certainly do not absolve you of your sins."
3. When Ward and she are amorous, she thinks about her next Tweet.
4. When she finds out Eddie Haskell's grandpa dated a Supreme Court justice, she asks him "do you think he shtupped her"?
So you see, "June" is a little crazy, especially when she's had too much homemade limoncello or while driving in L.A. traffic or really in any social or private setting. But, hopefully, what the rest of the Cleavers and their friends also see is a character who loves them fiercely and would do anything for them. But, if they don't, that's okay. I know there'll be a string of expletives as long as pearls waiting for them at the end of the show.
You can send me to every charm school -- which my mom actually suggested once -- and it wouldn't matter. Make me balance a million books on my head, and lock me in a room with Emily Post and Judith Martin. It wouldn't change a thing. As the Big Guy Upstairs said to Moses: "I am, what I am" and by the "big guy upstairs", I don't mean Popeye.
The way I cope with any uncomfortable reality is by engaging in Walter-Mitty fantasies not of how my life is different but how I believe other people really live. So in the case of falling short of being the perfect mother and wife, I have convinced myself that these are just some of the things that went down in the Cleaver household when the cameras were not rolling:
1. When Wally did not get into Stanford, June replied "it's not a good fit for you any way. Only over achievers go there".
2. When Beaver apologized for making them run late, June said "I'm not your effing priest and I certainly do not absolve you of your sins."
3. When Ward and she are amorous, she thinks about her next Tweet.
4. When she finds out Eddie Haskell's grandpa dated a Supreme Court justice, she asks him "do you think he shtupped her"?
So you see, "June" is a little crazy, especially when she's had too much homemade limoncello or while driving in L.A. traffic or really in any social or private setting. But, hopefully, what the rest of the Cleavers and their friends also see is a character who loves them fiercely and would do anything for them. But, if they don't, that's okay. I know there'll be a string of expletives as long as pearls waiting for them at the end of the show.
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