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Yet another oddball show with full time housekeepers

posted 9 years ago by rockmail
11 replies | jump to latest

The show is fine overall, but yet again we have a moderately middle class home with an extremely expensive full-time housekeeper.

Kind of a hold over from the fifties where apparently every family aspired to having a maid/cook, it's even odder in shows from the seventies like Maude, Brady Bunch, Jeffersons, Different Strokes, etc.

All households that might Be able to afford a cleaning service, but also having scenes about coupon clipping and family budget issues. They also typically had adult household members who were apparently not employed, but couldn't be bothered to help with household chores! I'm looking at you, "Carols" (Brady and otherwise), Brady kids, Different Strokes kids.

MAYBE Mike Brady and George Jefferson could swing the bill, but did they really have the need? Strange obsession by the producers.

I grew up visiting homes with doctors, lawyers, and business owners of substantial change companies, yet none of them had full time maids! Really an oddball disconnect with reality by Norman Lear and other sitcom producers and writers. Maybe they just couldn't think of a comedy foil coming in from outside the family.

[–] McGannahanSkjellyfetti 9 years ago

What makes it silly is when you have the help being all smart a$$y and never really doing any of their work and yet they complain that they are not paid enough...

[–] jason_tasch 9 years ago

Alice Nelson (The Brady Bunch) is a hold-over from Mike's days as a widower, when she was needed to help him raise the "three boys of his own". My guess is that she became such an integral part of the family that it seemed natural to keep her on. Sure, Mike re-married and had a new wife, but she brought along her own "three very lovely girls". With that many kids under one roof, not being raised together to that point, sharing one bathroom, and all of them on the verge of puberty in turn as the show progresses, I am sure Alice was a god-send.

Did the Jeffersons NEED a maid? Of course not, especially not a live-in maid. The "deluze apartment in the sky" was not that big, and Louise could easily have managed it herself. But for George, it was all about "status". He had become a wealthy man, and wanted to show off to everybody all of the things that his wealth could by, inclufing a live-in maid... even one as mouthy as Florence.

Philip Drummond was very wealthy! He was also raising a child all alone, in addition to running a multi-national conglomerate like Trans-Allied Inc. Under these circumstances alone, he would need the serviced of a live-in maid. Suddenly add to that two kids from the ghetto, and the need for help became even more imperative!

Each of these shows could make a stronger case for hired help than MAUDE, but I guess with her adult daughter moving into the famiily home, and bringing a kid with her--Maude would have welcomed the help. Plus, she may have felt the need to hire Florida out of "white guilt". By the time the other housekeepers came along, they Findlays were just used to having the help.

All of this has just been my opinions, of course. Now back to my own chores--this is the 2010s, not the 1970s, and I cannot afford the help for my tiny apartment!

[–] amyghost 9 years ago

The Findlays weren't low-rent. Walter owned his own business, and Maude sold real estate. That meant a good income between them, and in the early to mid Seventies, 25,000 dollars a year was a very good income, believe it or not. They'd have made at least that much, likely enough for a maid--domestics' wages were a lot lower then.

Because maids weren't as ubiquitous by that time was less likely due to inability to pay amongst the upper middle classes than the fact that societal mores had changed, and to those of the more liberal mindset keeping 'servants' was seen as going against the idea of social equality. Also fewer people were willing to work in those types of positions any longer, so full-time domestic help was not as easy to come by as formerly.

[–] shannongr 9 years ago

"those of the more liberal mindset keeping 'servants' was seen as going against the idea of social equality."

This makes it all the more strange that Maude had one. But then again, I think the show showed Maude to be a "limousine liberal" and a hypocrite often for laughs.

[–] amyghost 8 years ago

Absolutely. Lear wasn't one to shy away from skewering some of the pretensions and posturings of the Left. Note how overly protective Maude often is of the adult Carol, despite her claims of being liberated in her sexual views.

50 Is The New Cutoff Age.

[–] jarrodmcdonald-1 8 years ago

The Findlays weren't low-rent. Walter owned his own business, and Maude sold real estate. That meant a good income between them, and in the early to mid Seventies, 25,000 dollars a year was a very good income, believe it or not

Right. They were not middle class. They were upper middle. And at the end, when she becomes a politician, I am sure they became even wealthier.

In the first season, Florida was not a live-in maid. I think Mrs. Naugatuck who lived there was more of a full-time maid.

[–] amyghost 8 years ago

Mrs. Naugatuck lived over the garage, so she got room and board in addition to her salary, while Florida commuted to Tuckahoe. Walter and Maude were definitely upscale, a far cry from Archie and Edith Bunker, and were, if not fabulously well-off, quite comfortably fixed for that era.

50 Is The New Cutoff Age.

[–] McGannahanSkjellyfetti 8 years ago

It wasn't always a smooth ride. Walter did go bankrupt for while though...

[–] jarrodmcdonald-1 8 years ago

Didn't Mrs. Naugatuck stay in an extra room upstairs in the beginning? Because I thought the episode where her nephew is in the closet took place upstairs. After she began dating Bert and got married, we saw her staying above the garage. Unless I am misremembering this..?

My point was that Mrs. Naugatuck was pretty much there 24-7, while Florida was not, because in her off-hours she was raising a family.

[–] McGannahanSkjellyfetti 8 years ago

Yes this is true. She stayed in the room in the house and then suddenly they had a whole apartment over the garage in the fifth season that was never talked about before where they stayed just a little bit before they got married though...

[–] pioneergrrrl (2412) 5 years ago

it also reflected the economics of the era (pre Reagan) when people accepted being taxed more in exchange for the Government then providing a larger safety net....etc.

That large safety net was infact supposed to help advertise against communism by showing how 'great' American democracy was since it provides all of these things as a 'safeguard' so people do not get curious and try "other" forms of government.

This show was from the generation which had won WWII, against countries which DID try to overthrow democracy. We were supposed to see that "American democracy" made living well possible-yes although Lear (like others of that very same generation) did not know how to explain racial/class biases even when they knew it existed and were 'problematic' against 'living well'. Not everybody 'lived well' if they could only get a job as a maid.

Maude would not be able to afford a housekeeper today she would also have to work to keep a roof over her and her husband's head. She might still hold some of her views but she'd have less time/freedom to air them in an office.

Reagan planted this idea in people's heads that we did not need to be taxed as much. Fine but we do not get as much from the government and more of us do have to work much more hours for what we still do want.

There IS a trade off.