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Post by Ali on Mar 21, 2011 22:58:14 GMT -5
I really don't see a problem with Margene going on missions. Yes, her kids have had a devastating loss, but that doesn't mean she should be housebound. I saw the family as a four parent household, so it's not like she is giving up on her kids. They have two other mothers. And being away for two months (two, six week missions) in a year doesn't seem that bad. Not all families are alike, and parents have to juggle work and family all the time. Military deployments, business trips, night shifts, long hours, police/fire/emergency services, multiple jobs, or single parent households are all common reasons a parent isn't always home for their kids. I don't know how Margene came out of Goji money wise, but I got the feeling that she is good at small business/work-from-home. She had been doing really well with the jewelry, remember how she didn't want to put her profits into the family pot? I would assume she got into something else along the same lines, where she can contribute an income to the family while working on a flexible schedule. Maybe she has been working her ass off, and so the mission is her "me time". Go easy on her. Just because she may not fit your idea of an ideal mom, it doesn't mean she is a bad one.
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Post by writerwannabe on Mar 21, 2011 23:48:16 GMT -5
I know I should let go of this. As someone else said, we'll just have to agree to disagree. But I just watched Margene's blog in which she says she has been to Portland "countless" times, she's been in Colorado, she's been in numerous countries on the coast of South America, and she's been "all over the world." Apparently she has been on the road since Bill died. She says she always comes home.
OK, this next part is judgmental. IMO, Marge and every other person who has a child voluntarily gives up the right to put herself or himself first. Parenthood is a different stage of life than adulthood. Yes, Marge missed adulthood, but that was her choice. She jumped straight into parenthood, and parenthood is a 100% commitment, regardless of the number of other parents in the household. I don't have a problem with Marge traveling the world, I just think she should wait 20 years to do it.
But I am biased. Margene has always been the wife I loved to hate!
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Post by calimomof4 on Mar 22, 2011 1:40:30 GMT -5
I think Barb felt an obligation to encourage Marge to take these trips as a sort of reparation for what she had to have suspected.
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Post by BigLoveRocks! on Mar 22, 2011 2:08:39 GMT -5
I personally have a bad taste in my mouth about Margene going on these missions.... Reason being.. She has 3 young children to worry about. If she didn't have kids, or was older and had teenage kids that would be one thing. But she has a baby that isn't even a year old yet and she's taking off? That is just ridiculous in my opinion. I lost a lot of respect for Margene (not that I had a whole lot to begin with) after that. Personally, I'd never leave my kids behind for any extended period of time, even if I was off doing good in the world. If you are going to have children, you need to be there for them, everyday. But again, that is just my opinion of course.
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Post by rissmeek on Mar 22, 2011 2:18:18 GMT -5
I personally have a bad taste in my mouth about Margene going on these missions.... Reason being.. She has 3 young children to worry about. If she didn't have kids, or was older and had teenage kids that would be one thing. But she has a baby that isn't even a year old yet and she's taking off? That is just ridiculous in my opinion. I lost a lot of respect for Margene (not that I had a whole lot to begin with) after that. Personally, I'd never leave my kids behind for any extended period of time, even if I was off doing good in the world. If you are going to have children, you need to be there for them, everyday. But again, that is just my opinion of course. Ok the part that I bolded made me think back to my child hood. My dad worked a traveling job and while I was a daddy's girl I didn't think much of it. He was the only dad in my class that wasn't home every night but I still didn't think anything of it. It was home as much as he could and his job afforded us things that most of the kids in my class couldn't afford. (Now the story that the bold part made me think of and as it was told to me) My grandmother moved in with my parents when my grandpa died, before I was born. Before my parents knew they were going to be blessed with me ;D they had made plans to go to Vegas with friends. They had considered cancelling the trip but my grandma convinced my mom she would want to get away by that time and it would do her good. So off my parents went, six months or so after I was born. They were driving out to Vegas from Kansas. One morning while going to breakfast, they were in Colorado I think, they see our town's name in the headlines. (We are a town of 400 near the Missouri/Kansas boarder.) Someone had been killed in town. My mom flipped, called my grandma who was clueless that anything had happened. After that they never went on a vacation without me.
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Post by rissmeek on Mar 22, 2011 2:34:43 GMT -5
Ok now for my opinion of Marge leaving. I'm not a mother so I can only base it off my experiences as a child.
As I said in my last post my dad traveled for work. He would leave late Sunday afternoon and return late Friday night. Since this was before cell phones, laptops, internet ect. he called each Wednesday evening. He attempted to make it to all my music programs, he didn't ballgames but I don't blame him. I am not an athlete and really who wants to drive three hours after working all day to watch your kid sit on a bench. When I played baseball he didn't miss one though. I didn't think and I still don't think that he missed anything or that I was somehow missing something. I had my grandma and mom. My dad was also providing me with things that not very many other kids in my area got. I got to have private music lessons, participate in anything that I wanted to ect. I realized that I only got to do that because my dad was gone.
Now if I was Margene's kids I think I would be pissed. By the time they are adults they may understand but not now. The kids aren't going to understand that what she is doing is really a great thing. There's no trade off for them, their mommy leaves and they don't get anything out of it. That's how a kids mind works. I do this then I get that. For me it was my dad left I got things no one else had. For the kids in my class it's I keep my x's I get to pick out of the treasure box. For Margene's kids it's mom leaves and nothing. I think if you have kids that you have to keep that in mind. You have to realize the kids need to get something out of it too.
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Post by BigLoveRocks! on Mar 22, 2011 3:03:32 GMT -5
Well that is what I am struggling with ... Here are Margene's kids... Whose father was just murdered and their mother is taking off on these long extended trips. That would mess up any child, regardless of the support system they had at home. That is why it bothers me.
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Post by withay on Mar 22, 2011 3:46:20 GMT -5
From a different point of view: My mother was a "stay at home Mom". Not because she wanted to be or because they could afford to be but because my Dad's ego said his wife would not work outside the home. She was miserable. And she also was a very young mother. So I know what it is like to grow up with a young, miserable mother. All things being equal, it would be best if Margene stayed at home with her children, at least until they were older. But the reality is that she is very young and had become very unhappy. And she has the good fortune of having two other parents in the home even when she leaves. My understanding of what she has been doing is working on volunteer missions so it's not like she has been out partying or even trying to become successful in the business world. I think Margene's children will be just fine.
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Post by aliensummer on Mar 22, 2011 7:50:03 GMT -5
To me, Marge's situation is different than a parent in the army or who travels for business. For starters, the kids of the parents in the other situations didn't just lose a parent. That totally disrupts the child's routine and understanding of the way things work. I can honestly say that when my dad died, I thought I had done something wrong and he left because of me. I not only knew that he wasn't coming back, but was told he wasn't coming back. I've heard that it's common for children to feel that way. To add a parent that willingly leaves, even if they come back every couple of months, I can just imagine would completely confuse a child. I know that for me, after losing my dad, when my mom would go out at night and leave me with a babysitter, I worried that she wasn't going to be coming back either.
And I know that Margene's kids have Nicki and Barb and they're supposed to view them as their mom's too, but it's obvious they know who their real mom is. They live in a house with Margene, they call her mom (not "Mother Margene"), she tucks them into bed at night, sleeps in the bed that they would crawl into when they have nightmares, makes breakfast for them every morning, etc. That's the kid's routine, and they know that that's their mom.
Trust me, I can see why Margene would want to travel and volunteer overseas. I love doing it. I've volunteered several times overseas will be going away to Swaziland in the beginning of May to volunteer at an orphanage. I'd be totally supporting Margene if Bill hadn't just died. But her kids now need her more than ever. She should've at least waited a year before her first trip, and at that, it shouldn't have been months long.
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Post by writerwannabe on Mar 22, 2011 8:03:28 GMT -5
From Alien: And I know that Margene's kids have Nicki and Barb and they're supposed to view them as their mom's too, but it's obvious they know who their real mom is. They live in a house with Margene, they call her mom (not "Mother Margene"), she tucks them into bed at night, sleeps in the bed that they would crawl into when they have nightmares, makes breakfast for them every morning, etc. That's the kid's routine, and they know that that's their mom.
Marge may come home to find that her kids are calling Nikki mom. The boys may have bonded with Marge and will continue to want her love. Even abused children will choose their abusive parent over a loving foster or other substitute parent. Nell is just a baby. She may bond with Nikki and never develop a mother/child relationship with Marge.
Withay makes a good point that Margene's children may be better off without her if the other option is Marge being there to raise them but always sulking and feeling sorry for herself and resenting them for tying her down.
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Post by morgain13 on Mar 22, 2011 8:19:40 GMT -5
I am on the side with the bad writing part. I completely understand how Margene has become so unhappy and wants to do these missions - I however think that you put that behind you & focus on your children, because a sa parent that is what you have to do. I know her situation is different than most of us as her kids have 2 other moms as well but at least she could have waited a year before she started this. their dad was just murdered - some mourning time is expected. A person should put their kids needs before their own - that is just the way it is.
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Post by kathy36610 on Mar 22, 2011 10:42:01 GMT -5
At first I agreed about how it was bad mothering for Margene to leave the kids with Barb and Nikki (who isn't warm). But then I remember the episode called "Where there's a will". Margene said her kids reached for Barb before they reached for her. When the series first started, Margene acted more like a child than a wife. Barb was always having to correct her and Ben until it just got ridiculous and they fell out about it. Margene would stay at Barb's house all the time, so I think the children probably looked more to Barb as a mother.
It did make it seem as if no matter what happened they would always be a family. They were sealed as sisters forever, even if lugheaded Bill felt they had to do it all over again.
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Post by BigloveCalifgirl on Mar 22, 2011 11:33:18 GMT -5
I am a child of a mother who went away on 4 weeks trips once a year. I turned out fine and it actually inspired me to go out in to the world and do things myself. At age 17 I was traveling the world on my own staying with friends my mother made over her 8 years of trips. I think you guys should consider a different and more feminist perspective on this. Of course it was hard when my Mom left, but as I got older I cam eto understand why she did it. I don't think I will do the same thing with my children but to each their own. I never felt abandoned.
That being said, less than a year after Bill died? That's a bit much, but maybe that was her only way of grieving. This finale left way to much open and I think this part of that...
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Post by Jon Reiss on Mar 22, 2011 12:46:48 GMT -5
I think that Margene is now living out her 20's since she never really got a chance to do so.
I just wonder why the short hair? Is that a "going overseas" thing?
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Post by kathy36610 on Mar 22, 2011 13:47:31 GMT -5
Nope. The actress has short hair. She just stopped wearing the wig. But I remember an earlier episode in the first or second season, Lois told Sarah that she cut her hair short in mourning for her daughter. Maybe the character cut her hair in mourning for Bill.
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