How was your mother like Beth Jarrett?

Great article and great insights-

My mother once bought me two shirts. I found them on my bed.

My mom was more like Mommie Dearest.

They both drank Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.

Buck never would've bothered to save gift wrap.

My mother would react to any news she didn’t like by just staring out the window, taking a drag off her Kent cigarette and saying things like “I’ll never understand my children..”

[quote]How was your mother like Beth Jarrett?

Her last name had the same number of syllables.

That's all.

She shopped at Neiman-Marcus at Northbrook Court.

Mine pulled stunts like the French Toast Incident all the time.

Mine was awesome and used Beth as an example of how not to be a mother. She loved Mary Tyler Moore and the movie tho

Somehow I don't think Beth Jarrett saved christmas wrapping. That sounds very working class.

If only!

The thing is it was Mary playing against public type, but the coldness was very much a part of her personality. It really was no stretch. If anything, Mary Richards was the true acting feat.

I read her first book back in the 90's and was saddened by how depressing it was. She had a lot of sadness in her life, but she did find love as she got older.

Not a monster, rather damaged somehow and unable to cope with the tragedy and its effect on her remaining son and husband. The husband could, even if it was not pretty. My mother was somewhat similar in that she saw the world very narrowly and was not remotely self aware. As she grew older she chafed and became angry at almost anything particularly my father and some of her children. She was really angry at her parents and brother for making a mess of their lives.

Moore’s character was very real, very limited and ultimately a tragedy. Very good movie.

What do you suppose happened to Beth Jarrett after the events of the movie?

We used to say Beth was Mary Richards if Mary had gotten married.

My mother was way too sloppy to be like Beth, funny too, she would have made fun of Beth. But my mother was incapable of empathy.

She wouldn’t save French toast no matter much I begged, and was awful at helping me with trig.

Mary was also good playing Sante Kimes in a TV movie for CBS. A twisted parent who was fucking her son. Mary brought subtle dark humor and pathos to the role.

They did a version for Lifetime with Judy Davis, but it was fucking awful. Davis overacted the whole thing.

My mother was nothing at all like Beth Jarrett, but we did tease her mercilessly over one Beth-like moment. My mother wanted to have us all together for a family picture as I was going off to college. My father, sister, and I all grumbled and complained, but finally a date and time were set. The photographer came to the house and set up lights and things. My sister was late, but we finally got all lined up and ready. Like something out of a bad movie, the photographer said, "Okay, three... two... o -" and then the power went out for the rest of the night. Mom was NOT happy and the rest of us laughed about it all night. Cut to Christmas when I was home from college and the Official Second Try was scheduled. It happened, but we were teasing my mom so much that she wasn't in a very good mood. When the long-awaited photo made its appearance, my father, sister, and I never looked better. Mom looked like Beth in OP's photo. This was 1981, and the film of Ordinary People was still fresh, so of course we teased her about it. Poor Mom. It ended up being our last family picture, too. Whenever I see it, it brings a tear to my eye that they're all gone, but I smile at the pained look on my mother's face -she SO wanted a family portrait that she could hang up on the wall...

She wore a lot of brown in that era.

My mother is nothing like Beth Jarrett. She had a great career outside of the home, she is not obsessive about housekeeping, and she is warm and giving as a parent.

My mother was more Jessica Fletcher when she got older.

Younger she was more Samantha Stevens without the witchcraft. But she could twitch her nose, and ears. Her mother was like Aunt Clara unless she was pissed off.

My mom was more like Hope Lange in The Ghost and Mrs Muir.

My mom was more like Hope Lange in Crowhaven Farm.

Yes, she was.

My mother was more like Elizabeth Taylor crossed with Gracie Allen.

My mother was unsentimental. To a fault. It was the only source of real friction she had with my father.

Otherwise, she was a funny, profane broad with a depressive streak. Of course we never talked about or tried to normalize mental illness in the family.

My mother was a combination of Beth Jarrett and Mommy Dearest. Completely bats. We walked on eggshells 24/7.

When she got very old she mellowed a bit and seemed to forget how she had treated her family over the previous fifty years.

My mom was the type to catch an attitude if I didn’t eat a breakfast she prepared right away or worse enjoyed my father’s meal more than hers. She could be a petty cunt like that. I could definitely hear her say “You can’t reheat French toast”, hence why the movie forever resonated with me after seeing it for the first time circa 2013.

My mom did play golf.

In just about every way. Except for the wealth.

My mom was a tennis FREAK.

R32 mine too. Except my dad was NOTHING like Donald Sutherland. Very interesting household I grew up in.

Mine was a shrink. But she ended up a psych professor mostly. Very liberal Catholic convert. Hated John Paul and Pope Ratzi the Nazi. Was a favourite dance partner of the few straight Jesuit priests.

A bit too gay friendly at times, to the extent of staying friendly with my exes.

Loved golf tennis bowling and bridge.

Damn I miss her.

The summer she taught us Croquet was quite interesting. It was supposed to be civilised and unisex. Somehow it became competitively nasty. That's on her.

Mine was always overly concerned over what her friends and neighbors would say about anything adverse that happened in our family.

R37, yeah, that was mine too.

Similar twin sets.

Prior to seeing a therapist and getting on meds, my mother was exactly like Glenn Close in Damages. Very hot and cold with tendency to explode.

I came out the height of AIDS. I had spent most of the 1980s cowering in a corner, married to a young woman set up by my father. Got her pregnant, got married, Dad's plan. Turn me straight.

Meanwhile my father was fucking my wife's mother behind Mom's back. she booted him out. she heard about the setup with me and my wife and made him pay me so I could deal with the depression. I stayed married 6 years. baby was miscarried after a big expensive wedding. I loved her as a friend and tried hard to enjoy sex with her.

when the marriage ultimately broke up my mother was the one who understood and was on my side.

she even took my father back after a prolonged separation that produced another sibling.

R41 Holy shit. Can I license the rights to your life story. This would make great tv, all set during the 80s too. I would pen one helluva pilot episode and continuing storyline. Was the miscarriage after the first pregnancy? Are you still in touch with your kid? I’m guessing you came from a somewhat upper middle class background?

My mom was always smartly dressed and the house was clean. She was warm, interesting and adventurous.

I was lucky. I had a sweet mom. Slighty afraid of her own shadow, but sweet nonetheless.

My mom was sweet and nice about 95% of the time. But if you crossed her she was capable of ripping you a new one.

Beth Jarrett seemed like Carol Brady compared to my mom. If Beth was Alaska, my mom was Antarctica.

There was an extensive library, but it was mostly Reader’s Digest condensed classics.

She had graduated junior college, but followed dietary advice from a radio show that promoted mysteriously advanced natural supplements.

She salvaged the house in the 80s from foreclosure, but spent so much time at casinos her last three years. The checks were big and frequent. Yes, they took checks.

Teacake / r42 one of my older sisters is already trying to write it. Our grandparents were immigrants to Canada - three from Scotland, one from Ireland - my Dad's side. working class. My father's father started as a groundskeeper/ gardener at the Molson Family mansion where he met his Scottish wife,she was a cook's helper.

my mother's parents wete both Scottish and the grandfather I never met wss an engineer but they didn't live well. Gambler.

my father was born in 1920. Shot down in Belgium in '43 and thought dead.

He was 25 and mom 17 when they married in '45. Both went back to school. a priority. both PHDs.

6 kids .

my father had two outside the marriage. one before in England, one in the 1980s.

my very blonde older sister married a black man from Kenya in 1968. four kids. they are like my younger siblings.

we also have my father's diary from when he was a POW.

our family story will make an amazing Canadian saga. and we're almost like you Americans culturally.

R41 did you not read the assignment. Was your mother like Beth Jarrett or not?

R48 Wow, that makes the story even more fascinating. Please wink at us if it ever goes anywhere ie..published books or television. I imagine many of us would figure it out anyway ;). And yes I would definitely adapt your story to an American setting. 😜

No Comparison and a real stretch for Mary.

Very very similar. Colder than a corpse in a freezer. Too bad she's still alive.

She was cold, withholding, disapproving, rigid, emotionally limited and volatile when her sense of order was disrupted.

Seeing the movie at 14 was a revelation. When Mary-as-Beth says, "Mothers don't hate their sons!" I said, like hell they don't.

When I came home for a few days after moving to NYC post-college, she put her hand on my shoulder, and I jumped. So little tenderness had previously been expressed. I thought it could've been an Ordinary People outtake.

She's gone now. And, well, whatever.

I certainly will Teacake/r50. I'm 66. My 49 year old beautiful niece, a one time model, did many commercials, extras on Discover Channel shows as the tall attractive black woman, just paid a visit with her much younger husband.

I babysat her. She's a diva. She blames her gay uncle for it. I admit to spoiling the crap out of her .

And she was my Mom's first girl grandchild. The bond was like glue. However, even here in accepting Canada there were times my blonde blue-eyed mom got second looks when dragged her chocolate granddaughter around fully intending to turn her into a girly girl who loved jewelry, makeup, perfume, clothes and especially shoes. People assumed my mother was her foster mother, or worse, her social worker.

Good old Mum did not take to kindly to that. If you looked closely the resemblance was uncanny. One was a light older version of the other.

Naturally my niece was devastated when Mum died. We all were.

Rep 29:

My mother was also like Beth and Mommie Dearest. I also learned to walk on eggshells at an early age. She didn't think she had a problem. Trying to anticipate her behavior (when she would blow one way or the other) was like trying to predict earthquakes.

[quote]R14 Moore’s character was very real, very limited and ultimately a tragedy.

Tragedy implies we’re supposed to feel sympathy.

Why would we do so for such an utter cunt? She had the intelligence, resources, and support necessary to develop as a human being, yet she refused to.

Fuck her.

Perms, pastels and potpourri.

Frenemies with Carole Lazenby.

My God my mother was just like that with gift wrap. I thought it was a Depression-era thing.

R52 sorry you were exposed to that growing up. Any video of her in action?

Had a great mom who didn’t have to bury her dead gay son.

Hi Carole Lazenby/r61!

R48 I know your family. IRL.

My mother could never remember my dog's name and was always having golf course meltdowns.