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Working Moms in Real Life Vs. Working Moms on TV

Even shows that aim to empower working moms still get so much wrong

Kerala Taylor
8 min readOct 27, 2021
Image compiled by author using Canva Pro. Screenshot via Netflix.

TV is not real life — I get it. Most of my days would not make for particularly compelling television.

I doubt anyone wants to watch me comb my daughter’s hair, smile through Zoom meetings, make dentist appointments, fish spoons out of the garbage disposal, or bark at my kids to please, for the love of God, put away their shoes and hang up their jackets.

When I sit down with my husband and a glass of wine for my 30 minutes of “relaxing time,” I don’t necessarily want to watch a woman in sweatpants marching around a house that looks like it’s retching Legos and rice cake crumbs doing all of the decidedly unglamorous tasks that consumed my day.

The whole point of TV, as I understand it, is to temporarily remove yourself from your own reality and get caught up in someone else’s drama.

Admittedly, I’m no TV buff — I was allowed to watch two shows growing up: The Cosby Show and whatever came on after it (first Family Ties, then A Different World). I now allow myself a few shows a week, but I’m usually late to the party — by way of example, my husband and I are currently on Season 2 of The Good Wife.

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Kerala Taylor
Kerala Taylor

Written by Kerala Taylor

Award-winning writer. Interrupting notions of what it means to be a mother, woman, worker, and wife. Subscribe: https://keralataylor.substack.com

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