Leave It to Beaver, Sex and the City, and a Woman’s Happiness

By: American Decency Staff

Several years ago, actress Barbara Billingsley, best known for portraying the quintessential supermom on the television comedy Leave It to Beaver, died at age ninety-four. In her signature role as June Cleaver, Billingsley personified the ideal middle-class mother and housewife in an era when relatively few American women with children worked outside the home.

The "Ideal" Housewife

June Cleaver was presented as a flawless housewife cheerfully running a home: baking cookies, stuffing celery with peanut butter, vacuuming in high heels, preparing meals, greeting her husband with a kiss when he arrived home from work, and tucking in her two adorable sons at night.

June was kind, gentle, loving, and ever-patient. She was known for her signature line, "Ward, I'm very worried about the Beaver," whenever her younger son got into trouble or seemed despondent. June's life revolved around her family. Though college educated and capable of a career, she was happy and content in her role as a wife and stay-at-home mom. And therein lay the rub.

The Feminist . . . Mistake?

In the early sixties, a landmark book, The Feminine Mystique, burst onto the scene. It claimed that women were NOT happy as housewives—at least they shouldn't be happy in that role! Those women who were content as wives and moms simply hadn't had their eyes opened to the extent of their oppression. Men had duped them to believe that a June Cleaver-type of existence was worthwhile and satisfying, when, in fact, such a role was subservient, and demeaning. As this feminist message spread, women in the sixties and seventies began to vilify Billingsley's June Cleaver ideal.

Fast-forward the tape fifty years. A whole generation has had its consciousness raised to believe the idea that homemaking and caring for family is demeaning to women. The June Cleaver "Leave It to Beaver" ideal for womanhood has been replaced with a Carrie Bradshaw "Sex & the City" one. We've denigrated the value of marriage, children, home, self-sacrifice, and morality, and elevated the value of independence, career, self-indulgence, and sexual freedom. And our marriages and families have suffered as a result.

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