MBS and I are on a serious roll with the Family Pictures Podcast as we drop episode 3: “The Roles We Play – Mr. Mom.” What I’m finding as we continue to focus on movies from 1983 is how the process is bringing up some memories and stories from my childhood as a kid in the 70s and 80s. Stories are gold and more than a few are starting to percolate that are really fun to relate, like family free-for-alls in the supermarket or early mishaps as a paperboy.
Another story I forgot to tell was around my own mom’s return to work, much like Teri Garr’s character in Mr. Mom. The economic crunch of the early 80s was real, add to that a divorce with seven kids and my mom had no choice but to suit back up. More than that though, she liked going back to work, she was good at what she did and it gave her reprieve from nearly 20 years of constant child rearing—almost entirely alone. The other side of having seven kids—if you can last long enough—is the older kids eventually take care of the younger. In many ways my oldest sister Kissy (she was maybe 16 or 17) was a surrogate mother to me and my younger sister. That said, your mom is your mom and it wasn’t easy for Cathy, the youngest, who was maybe six or seven at the time. She committed my mom’s work phone to memory* and spent much of the day calling her at work—making up all kinds of crazy emergency scenarios to ensure the operator and/or her colleagues would put her on the phone. She called so many times a day (an hour?) that the hospital ultimately had to block our home number (I wanna think at my mom’s request). My mom would check in at regular times, but we couldn’t call her. There’s a whole bit about how central the home phone was to a household in the 80s, but maybe we’ll do that in a different episode.
Anyway, I’m loving how this podcast provides the excuse to reflect back on my own childhood and family while thinking through my role as dad 40 years later. I always enjoy Alan Levine’s reflections on his family and using his blog to pay tribute, but I always had a hard time imagining a post like that head-on. The podcast allows me a way to do it slant while talking about my favorite entertainment in the world: movies.
Speaking of which, episode 4 will have us leaving the comfortable confines of 1983 and venturing up a year to discuss the cult classic Night of the Comet as a family film—“a bit of a stretch?” you ask. We don’t think so, but you are just gonna have to listen to find out about this early date film for a 13 year old bava.
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*In fact, I might put too much of this on my younger sister, we all called my mom a lot—although Cathy was the worst offender for sure. In fact, I still remember the hospital phone number: 379-0007.
It’s just over a month since re-living the glory days of 1994 at Portland’s 
