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June Cleaver of “Leave it to Beaver”: Perfect TV Mom
June Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver"
Perhaps no other character exemplifies the idealized mom of the 1950s better than June Cleaver on “Leave it to Beaver.” Played by Barbara Billingsley, who died Saturday at age 94, June Cleaver managed to be glamorous and maternal.
Unlike today’s TV moms, June Cleaver was reliable and always put her family first. She had an almost uncanny ability to know when her kids were getting into trouble and she was always available to lend a sympathetic ear. In some ways, she seemed too good to be true.
The TV moms of the 80s followed in June Cleaver’s footsteps, but in addition to looking good and taking care of their kids, they also worked outside the home.
Clair Huxtable and Elyse Keaton on “The Cosby Show” and “Family Ties,” respectively, were working moms who look perfectly coiffed and always seemed to have time to talk to their kids (and, of course, they always knew just the right thing to say).
But more recently, the trend on TV has veered towards “anti-moms”on shows such as “Parenthood,” “Weeds,” “Desperate Housewives,” and “Brothers and Sisters.”
On these shows, the moms compete for attention with their kids, flirt with their kid’s teacher, drink too much, manipulate their children, and forget to make dinner. The list of their parenting flaws is endless.
Do you miss the days of June Cleaver-type moms on TV or do you appreciate the more warts-and-all view of motherhood we’re seeing nowadays?
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TJDestry commented on Oct 17 10 at 10:47 amI don’t see any reason to reinforce the idea that you don’t have time for your kids, or that it’s impossible to make good choices, or that kids can’t be taught decent behavior. And June wasn’t “perfect” — she made mistakes, though she tended to be less apt to give rash orders like Ward sometimes did. But as often as she had to try to get him to back off and give the boys a break, he often had to remind her that kids sometimes need to exercise a little folly. I think Leave It To Beaver is misrepresented — it was far more realistic than the other family shows, and so were the parents. In fact, there were a couple of shows in which the fact that the Cleavers were financially comfortable was a plot point — with Ward and June working to get the boys to show a little more sensitivity to kids who didn’t have their advantages, and to show a little more gratitude for their own situation.
Yes, we could use more of that.
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