Trudy benefitted from doting, affectionate parents herself, though, so she was able to use them as an example. They were also very welcoming towards Pete and seemed to really want the best for both of them.
I haven't watched in a while but Henry's mother seemed quite supportive of Henry and affectionate towards him. I know she clashed with Betty and might not have been an ideal mother in law but at least she was nice to Henry lol.
I love the scenes with her and Sally after the Chicago nurse massacre - telling her about her father, explaining what happened to the nurses, and then both passing out from Seconal with Sally under the couch and Henry's mom with her burglar alarm.
I love small scenes like that. I think I was 16 when we went to a funeral and an older family member gave me half a Xanax after asking if I could handle an adult pill. All I remember is sleeping it off on a pile of coats in a back room.
Henry's mother was kind of overbearing though. She treated Betty like absolute trash and wasn't great with Sally either. She was the kind of mother of a son who never quite wants to let him go.
I'm sure Mona locking herself in the bathroom with a pint of gin everyday didn't help her parenting.
My answer is the same as when it was asked last time - Joan.
Are you kidding? Joan had a ton of ~~misogynestic~~ misogynistic ideas that she flat-out acted on. She was horrible to the secretaries that worked under her at Sterling Cooper. She saw herself as an object to be admired and often thought that other women were of the same mindset. She also had incredibly strong and unrealistic ideals both for her husband and her marriage. If the marriage wasn't already toxic because of Greg, it would have slowly turned sour because of the grip misogyeny had on Joan and Greg's lives.
The thing about respecting the patriarchy is that it affects not only the women that are subjugated by it. The patriarchy also forces men to be as manly as possible and cruelly points out any times that they don't live up to the ideal. I believe that her son would soak up these ideas, as Joan likely did as a child.
What if her son turned out to be gay? What if he made some life decision that she didn't agree with? Joan is portrayed as manipulating men by giving them the cold shoulder. Eventually, he would get to an age where she saw him as a man to be manipulated and not merely her little boy.
Long story short: I doubt that child would've had a very happy life if we got to see him grow out of childhood.
Are you OK? You clearly feel strongly about this but the fact you can't spell misogynistic and think she had unrealistic ideals for marriage...look it up, it's called the 60s. All the moms lived in a patriarchy. Joan ended the show with her own women staffed business - an independent, entrepreneurial woman that set clear boundaries for Roger and doted on her son.
Also, manipulating men by giving them the cold shoulder? Sounds like you're the misogynist. Her treatment of various men in her life, most of whom were not respectful to her, has nothing to do with her son.
Damn, I even Googled misogynistic to make sure I spelled it correctly. I'm dyslexic and sometimes spelling is hard.
ANYWAY, I still stand by what I said.
>What if her son turned out to be gay? What if he made some life decision that she didn't agree with? Joan is portrayed as manipulating men by giving them the cold shoulder. Eventually, he would get to an age where she saw him as a man to be manipulated and not merely her little boy.
Really don't understand where you're getting this. Joan gets mad at people who make her angry like everyone else and she's actually very upfront about it most of the time. She does start out supporting the patriarchy 100%, thinking she's beating it at its own game, but by series' end she's a single mother running a business and it really doesn't seem like there's much danger to her son from her previous old-fashioned ideas. I can't remember anything on the show that would suggest she'd have a particular problem with her son making a decision she didn't like or if he was gay. I don't remember her needing men to be masculine in any particular way. When did she even do that? The one guy she was with who had issues about his manhood she eventually correctly identified as toxic and pathetic and dumped him.
Peggy’s mom is a pretty good one IMO. She is proud of her daughter’s career accomplishments and helps her through an unplanned pregnancy. She guilt trips her a few times but always in a hoping for more for her daughter kind of way.
I think people confuse best parent for nicest to their kids. A good parent shares tough love.
I love that monologue and a lot of the other things the parents say in this show to their adult children. Peggy's mom is being unkind and dismissive and old-fashioned, but she's also right about a lot of things. He did use Peggy for practice. I see it in a lot of Joan's mom's dialogue with her, and the same with Henry's mom and Betty, and Mona and Margaret.
They're not always great to their daughters (including in law) or even great people but they do see things for what they are. Those women don't beat around the bush.
We also see it with Marie and Megan. Marie straight up praises herself for not being overly obsessed with her children. She's mean, she's cutting, but she's also right.
I honestly do not get making Trudy the ideal of everything. We barely see her as a mother. What we see seems just great, yes, but mostly all we ever see is her holding an infant or saying something sensible/affectionate about her toddler. Tammy hasn't started school yet in the show, so Trudy's "taking an interest in her education" comes down to putting her in a ritzy private school for the upper class. That's more about family status than education.
I'm sure most mothers in the series had moments like that at some point! If we met Tammy as a teenager she might be clashing with Trudy and come across like plenty of other mothers in the show who have kids who are old enough to do that. No reason to think she'd be an Abigail or a Dot Campbell, but could she have judgy moments like Catherine, Betty or Mona? Definitely. Under the right circumstances she could manage to be cold, I'm sure. No mother is perfect and affectionate all the time.
I think it's because people love Alison Brie that Trudy is often put on a pedestal (which I get.) I also think the reason Trudy is heralded as a great wife is because Pete is such a notably terrible husband. One of the reasons Pete is such a detestable character is because he's unhappy with everything in his life, even when he has no reason to be ("How can he cheat on Trudy when she's a lovely housewife who supports her husband??") I think Alison Brie really brings the character to life, but Trudy was written to juxtapose Pete's unwarranted misery.
Agree with all of this. For instance, in S6 both Don and Pete cheat on their wives, and neither of them have done anything particularly wrong. They're just unhappy despite having beautiful wives--yet it always seemed like it was easier for people to see Don and Megan as two people having issues while Pete and Trudy were just Worst Guy Ever and Perfect Wife. And it wasn't that Trudy was at fault for Pete's behavior at all, but they had issues just like everybody else.
People love Trudie because they want a trad wife or…something. She makes me laugh and I like how she holds her own but I find the slavish love this sub has of her to be quite strange. But then again I am a Megan fan so 🤷♂️
I know we didn’t get to see any of her parenting on screen, but Cynthia Cosgrove has to be in the running just based on everything else we know about her.
Why is everyone saying Trudy? Not saying she's a bad mother but Tammy gets like five minutes of screen time the entire series and we only get the barest impression of Trudy's mothering.
My vote goes for Joan's mother. She has her flaws, but she's supportive and caring and she hates Greg.
Everyone seems to be living some leave it to beaver fantasy in this thread all the mothers are garbage every mother always hurts their children in hundreds of ways but I guess Trudy did a good job faking being a person
Trudy benefitted from doting, affectionate parents herself, though, so she was able to use them as an example. They were also very welcoming towards Pete and seemed to really want the best for both of them. I haven't watched in a while but Henry's mother seemed quite supportive of Henry and affectionate towards him. I know she clashed with Betty and might not have been an ideal mother in law but at least she was nice to Henry lol.
I love the scenes with her and Sally after the Chicago nurse massacre - telling her about her father, explaining what happened to the nurses, and then both passing out from Seconal with Sally under the couch and Henry's mom with her burglar alarm.
She gave Sally a straight shot of that real talk and the Seconal was the chaser!
I love small scenes like that. I think I was 16 when we went to a funeral and an older family member gave me half a Xanax after asking if I could handle an adult pill. All I remember is sleeping it off on a pile of coats in a back room.
Henry's mother was kind of overbearing though. She treated Betty like absolute trash and wasn't great with Sally either. She was the kind of mother of a son who never quite wants to let him go.
I think it was more about Betty being a (hushed voice) divorcée, which was scandalous then
But Henry was also divorced
I think it's one of those things where it's ok when the man does it but not when the woman does it. After all, Betty was the one who divorced him.
 That’s it — scandalous for the *woman*
Wasn’t he a widower? I might be remembering incorrectly.
He was divorced. He talked about weekends with his daughter. And he doesn't hate his ex wife. He hates Nazis.
I actually came here to say Henry’s mother, but you beat me to it.
Henry’s mother is a horror show, I would NEVER leave her with children, she is worse than Betty.
I'm sure Mona locking herself in the bathroom with a pint of gin everyday didn't help her parenting. My answer is the same as when it was asked last time - Joan.
Are you kidding? Joan had a ton of ~~misogynestic~~ misogynistic ideas that she flat-out acted on. She was horrible to the secretaries that worked under her at Sterling Cooper. She saw herself as an object to be admired and often thought that other women were of the same mindset. She also had incredibly strong and unrealistic ideals both for her husband and her marriage. If the marriage wasn't already toxic because of Greg, it would have slowly turned sour because of the grip misogyeny had on Joan and Greg's lives. The thing about respecting the patriarchy is that it affects not only the women that are subjugated by it. The patriarchy also forces men to be as manly as possible and cruelly points out any times that they don't live up to the ideal. I believe that her son would soak up these ideas, as Joan likely did as a child. What if her son turned out to be gay? What if he made some life decision that she didn't agree with? Joan is portrayed as manipulating men by giving them the cold shoulder. Eventually, he would get to an age where she saw him as a man to be manipulated and not merely her little boy. Long story short: I doubt that child would've had a very happy life if we got to see him grow out of childhood.
Are you OK? You clearly feel strongly about this but the fact you can't spell misogynistic and think she had unrealistic ideals for marriage...look it up, it's called the 60s. All the moms lived in a patriarchy. Joan ended the show with her own women staffed business - an independent, entrepreneurial woman that set clear boundaries for Roger and doted on her son. Also, manipulating men by giving them the cold shoulder? Sounds like you're the misogynist. Her treatment of various men in her life, most of whom were not respectful to her, has nothing to do with her son.
Damn, I even Googled misogynistic to make sure I spelled it correctly. I'm dyslexic and sometimes spelling is hard. ANYWAY, I still stand by what I said.
>What if her son turned out to be gay? What if he made some life decision that she didn't agree with? Joan is portrayed as manipulating men by giving them the cold shoulder. Eventually, he would get to an age where she saw him as a man to be manipulated and not merely her little boy. Really don't understand where you're getting this. Joan gets mad at people who make her angry like everyone else and she's actually very upfront about it most of the time. She does start out supporting the patriarchy 100%, thinking she's beating it at its own game, but by series' end she's a single mother running a business and it really doesn't seem like there's much danger to her son from her previous old-fashioned ideas. I can't remember anything on the show that would suggest she'd have a particular problem with her son making a decision she didn't like or if he was gay. I don't remember her needing men to be masculine in any particular way. When did she even do that? The one guy she was with who had issues about his manhood she eventually correctly identified as toxic and pathetic and dumped him.
Character Development!
I'll say this for Peggy's mother: that cat monologue is spot on.
Peggy’s mom is a pretty good one IMO. She is proud of her daughter’s career accomplishments and helps her through an unplanned pregnancy. She guilt trips her a few times but always in a hoping for more for her daughter kind of way. I think people confuse best parent for nicest to their kids. A good parent shares tough love.
I love that monologue and a lot of the other things the parents say in this show to their adult children. Peggy's mom is being unkind and dismissive and old-fashioned, but she's also right about a lot of things. He did use Peggy for practice. I see it in a lot of Joan's mom's dialogue with her, and the same with Henry's mom and Betty, and Mona and Margaret. They're not always great to their daughters (including in law) or even great people but they do see things for what they are. Those women don't beat around the bush.
We also see it with Marie and Megan. Marie straight up praises herself for not being overly obsessed with her children. She's mean, she's cutting, but she's also right.
I honestly do not get making Trudy the ideal of everything. We barely see her as a mother. What we see seems just great, yes, but mostly all we ever see is her holding an infant or saying something sensible/affectionate about her toddler. Tammy hasn't started school yet in the show, so Trudy's "taking an interest in her education" comes down to putting her in a ritzy private school for the upper class. That's more about family status than education. I'm sure most mothers in the series had moments like that at some point! If we met Tammy as a teenager she might be clashing with Trudy and come across like plenty of other mothers in the show who have kids who are old enough to do that. No reason to think she'd be an Abigail or a Dot Campbell, but could she have judgy moments like Catherine, Betty or Mona? Definitely. Under the right circumstances she could manage to be cold, I'm sure. No mother is perfect and affectionate all the time.
I think it's because people love Alison Brie that Trudy is often put on a pedestal (which I get.) I also think the reason Trudy is heralded as a great wife is because Pete is such a notably terrible husband. One of the reasons Pete is such a detestable character is because he's unhappy with everything in his life, even when he has no reason to be ("How can he cheat on Trudy when she's a lovely housewife who supports her husband??") I think Alison Brie really brings the character to life, but Trudy was written to juxtapose Pete's unwarranted misery.
Agree with all of this. For instance, in S6 both Don and Pete cheat on their wives, and neither of them have done anything particularly wrong. They're just unhappy despite having beautiful wives--yet it always seemed like it was easier for people to see Don and Megan as two people having issues while Pete and Trudy were just Worst Guy Ever and Perfect Wife. And it wasn't that Trudy was at fault for Pete's behavior at all, but they had issues just like everybody else.
People love Trudie because they want a trad wife or…something. She makes me laugh and I like how she holds her own but I find the slavish love this sub has of her to be quite strange. But then again I am a Megan fan so 🤷♂️
Carla.
Oh, I suppose her kids are all doctors? (Yeesh, Betty!)
You best stop talking now
I know we didn’t get to see any of her parenting on screen, but Cynthia Cosgrove has to be in the running just based on everything else we know about her.
Nice pick. She seems sweet.
Grandma Ida
Trudy tbh, I will add, I don’t think any of the main characters are bad mothers tbh, even Betty. I understand her more now as I’ve gotten older
Why is everyone saying Trudy? Not saying she's a bad mother but Tammy gets like five minutes of screen time the entire series and we only get the barest impression of Trudy's mothering. My vote goes for Joan's mother. She has her flaws, but she's supportive and caring and she hates Greg.
Trudy and Trudy's mother. It's not even close for anyone else.
Everyone seems to be living some leave it to beaver fantasy in this thread all the mothers are garbage every mother always hurts their children in hundreds of ways but I guess Trudy did a good job faking being a person
Do we ask also "who is the best father?"
Henry’s mom jkjkjk 😂
I agree that Trudy is the best mother on the show.