Father Knows Best was a late 1950s television program that depicted an idealized typical middle class family composed of a wise and loving father Jim Anderson, housewife and mother Margaret who was a voice of reason and patience, and three good kids (two teenagers and one pre-teen) whose comedic trials and troubles while growing up provided the basis for most of the weekly plotlines. In the end, Jim with Margaret’s help, would provide the needed sage advice and words of encouragement to whichever of his three children needed it.
Over a half century later, the iconic Anderson family portrayed a different time in America and is considered quaint if not laughable by a modern culture overwhelmed by a humanistic interpretation of the world as it should be. Now, the entertainment media consistently portrays the father figure as an inept buffoon of marginal importance if not irrelevant to the family. In spite of the modern belief in the fiction of the typical 1950s Anderson-type family, it is the humanistic view that is an anomaly, abnormality, or even a perversion that is a stain on the pages of the history of marriage and family.
Stephanie Coontz […] Continue Reading…
