You and Your Family

Today’s Saturday Short is “You and Your Family,” part of the Art of Living Series. It’s a multiple choice quiz about You and Your Family.

Your Family is gathered in the living room. The phone rings. Mary answers. It’s her boyfriend and he wants to know if she can come to a dance at the lake tomorrow night? Mary runs back into the other room to ask her parents for permission. Mom says no and Dad goes along with her.

The narrator pipes up. Has anything like this happened in your home? How would you react? What do you think Mary should do next? Mary acts out some vignettes of different reactions.

A) She goes back to the phone. Her parents said no, she says. I guess our date’s off. She hangs up and goes into a powerful sulk.

B) After Dad tells Mary no, she has an idea. Why doesn’t she have her own party at the house tomorrow night? They could play music and make sandwiches and dance! Dad thinks this is a great idea. Mary rushes back to the phone to tell her boyfriend of the new plan.

C) Mary starts whining when Dad says no. She goes into a full-blown tantrum and storms out of the room. Mom follows her out to give her a good talking-to.

D) Mary goes back to the phone. She quietly tells her boyfriend that her parents said no, but she’ll sneak out of the house tomorrow night and meet him anyway.

Did Mary do right in Scene 1, 2, 3, or 4? Why?

No and because. Next question!

Your Family is gathered around the table finishing supper. Mom asks who’s going to help her do the dishes tonight.

MARY would like to but she has so much homework she has to run very fast to get it all done.

What about you FATHER? “I should say not,” he says in the tone of a man who’s going to find himself sleeping on the couch tonight. Er, that is, he has to read the paper. Lots of stuff going on in the world. Yes siree bobbaroonie. Gotta keep up with those current events and all. Let Bill do it.

BILL pops up from his chair like he has a spring in his butt. Some of the fellas are waiting for him, he says as he disappears in a cloud of dust.

GEORGE will help. And, in his opinion, if CERTAIN OTHER people would help out once in a while the work would get done that much quicker!

Whose answer was best, MARY, BILL, FATHER, or GEORGE? Or maybe an entirely different answer, perhaps one that isn’t filled without so much whining?

It’s 12:45. Bill is sneaking back into the house because he was supposed to be home at 11:00. He walks to the stairs, deliberately not looking where he’s going so he’ll crash into the phone table and knock it over. A light comes on upstairs. Uh-oh, Father is up. What should Bill do now?

A) Father asks, “What kept ya, Son?” “It was like this,” Bill says making up an excuse on the spot. He’s terrible at lying and can’t keep his own story straight from one end of a sentence to another. “Are you sure you’re telling the truth,” Father asks. Of course Bill is! The trouble with this family is that no one believes his obvious lies!

B) Father asks, “Where were ya, Bill?” Nunya business, Bill snaps. He’s not a kid anymore. He can take care of himself! And from now on that’s just what he’s going to do. He storms out of the house. The next morning the milkman finds him curled up on the front stoop.

C) Father asks, “What kept ya, Bill?” “Sorry Dad,” Bill says. He was hanging out with The Guys and lost track of time. Dad asks if Bill knows the punishment coming to him. He can’t go out again for a week, Bill replies. It’s okay, it was my fault. He goes upstairs with Dad.

It seems to me the answer to this question depends on how Dad asks Bill why he was late.

Time for a review! What should happen when an invitation is received by telephone or otherwise? What is a good course of action when it’s time to do housework? What procedure do you recommend when someone comes home late?

Back in the living room, George turns to the camera to speak directly to us. What do you have to say about these family problems, he asks. I have to say they’re overly simplistic and geared towards an ideal version of white middle-class life in the late 1940s created by advertisers and educators trying to get people to forget the brief freedoms non-white non-men enjoyed during WWII. But that’s just me.