Friday, March 9, 2007

Hi everyone,

Help. I'm being haunted by June Cleaver. And today she seems so smug, I want to cry.

Why? Because six years after I swore off jobs that require business travel, today is my first of eight nights away from my ten-year-old son and six-year-old stepson. Yes, for work.

The kids are in heaven. After all, as I keep reminding myself, they're with blood relatives. But still--my skin crawls with guilt. Like somehow I'm letting my love of work edge out my mightier priority: Motherhood.

That's why I cannot wait to sit down and have a little on-camera stitch-and-bitch with two of television entertainment's working moms: Actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus and CBS executive producer/writer Kari Lizer.

At 7 p.m. on Monday, March 19, I'm going to corner Louis-Dreyfus and Lizer in a Burbank, California studio, demand outright a list of the hair products Julia uses, and ask them any questions we parentbloggers can think of -- about their work, their lives and the show they created based on Lizer's own divorce at age 40: The New Adventures of Old Christine.

So you tell me: What should we ask? It's a rich opportunity:

I'm just the scribe -- please add your question in the comments below, and I'll credit you and your blog if the conversation on March 19 goes in the direction of your question.

They're primed for the questions: A couple of weeks ago, when CBS offered BlogHer press passes to "Christine," I jumped at the chance to get LA mommybloggers into one of the few prime-time shows starring and executive-produced by women. I contacted Elaine from Wannabehippie, Lorien Silverleaf of The Soccer Mom Vote and Y of Joy Unexpected.

What did the bloggers learn? "I was somehow astonished to hear that these beautiful, talented and famous women would have some of the same parenting issues as us little people," blogged Elaine. "Duh."

Not duh -- dumb that so many women have to reinvent the mothering wheel themselves. But that's the show's charm, inside and out, to the cast it appears. When Y asked Louis-Dreyfus what she wanted Y's readers to know about "Christine," Louis-Dreyfus said:

"The idea itself and the point of view is a fresh one...and I know I'm in it and everything but still that .. is in fact actually why I signed up to do it to begin with. I don't feel as if I've seen it before and that's a huge relief because I really can't really say that about most anything else on TV. Except for a few shows that I like but I'm not going to promote them right now!" Watch the video here

What do you think -- is she right?

Since I'm both Old Christine and New Christine (an ex-wife and a new love interest w/stepkids), I've watched the show on YouTube non-stop. In so many ways, Christine is everymutha. She may be divorced, but she's any mom who's ever tried to balance her own interests with the needs of her little one and felt guilty for trying. As Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of The Mommy Wars, blogged this week: "Feeling good about yourself as a mother, whether you're working in or outside your house, is a pathetically difficult task in America today..."

I agree. Perhaps that's why, in my favorite bit from a previous season that you would never see anywhere else on television, Christine complains to her brother about "Angela," an imaginary nanny that she worries she might have to hire someday. Here's how I remember the exchange:

CHRISTINE'S BROTHER: "She's a nice girl!"
CHRISTINE: "Mmmm, I don't trust her."
BROTHER: "There is no Angela, right?"
CHRISTINE: "Right..."

I know I've been there, hell I'm there today, torn between doing a good job at home and doing a good job at work. Of course, since Old Christine is divorced, and her ex is involved with New Christine, her boy is her world. Which isn't always a good thing, of course, and Christine is both the most believable and least likable when her insecurities show.

And that is just fine -- divorced parenting is an on-air rarity and can make for hi-larious viewing as Christine survives stiletto jabs from the other mothers at her son's school and occasionally tries get laid. Producer/writer Lizer even gets some good sympathetic bits in for New Christine, like the time she accidentally shows up in Old Christine's nightie, thinking it's a gift her man was hiding in their luggage.

"Note to self," I thought. "Shirley Partridge taught you never to get a shag. But Old Christine has reminded you to burn negligees from your former life."

Of course, Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character has a lot more sex (check BlogHer Sex & Relationships editor Liz Rizzo on that), designer clothing, good-looking male teachers and niceties with the ex than my single parenting days afforded. But that's TV -- and I'd rather have some help laughing at motherhood to make up for tearing up every time the airplane takes off.

But is that okay? Is it okay to laugh at some of this stuff rather than cry? Is this enough of a boot-heel on the neck of June Cleaver and her creators? What episode would YOU write?

I'm going to ask for a steel-cage match between Julia-nee-Christine and June.

Think they'll go for it? Comments are open here...

Best,
Lisa

Lisa Stone is a BlogHer Co-Founder. Her personal blog is Surfette.

Photo credit: I'm giving June Cleaver the bird by Magically Mama.