Grieving June Cleaver

Posted on 11.30.10 by Mary Kassian

Actress Barbara Billingsley, best known for portraying the quintessential supermom on the television comedy ”Leave It to Beaver,” died recently at age 94. In her signature role as June Cleaver, Billingsley personified the ideal middle-class mother and housewife in an era when relatively few American women with children worked outside the home.

June Cleaver was presented as a flawless housewife cheerfully running a home: baking cookies, stuffing celery with peanut butter, vacuuming in high heels, preparing meals, greeting her husband with a kiss when he arrived home from work, and tucking in her two adorable sons at night.  June was kind, gentle, loving, and ever-patient. She was known for her signature line, “Ward, I’m very worried about the Beaver,” whenever her younger son got into trouble or seemed despondent. June’s life revolved around her family. Though college educated and capable of a career, she was happy and content in her role as a wife and stay-at-home mom. And therein lay the rub.

In the early sixties, a landmark book, “The Feminine Mystique,” burst onto the scene. It claimed that women were NOT happy as housewives—at least they shouldn’t be happy in that role!  Those women who were content as wives and moms simply hadn’t had their eyes opened to the extent of their oppression. Men had duped them to believe that a June Cleaver-type of existence was worthwhile and satisfying, when, in fact, such a role was subservient, and demeaning. As this feminist message spread, women in the sixties and seventies began to vilify Billingsley’s June Cleaver ideal.

Fast-forward the tape fifty years. A whole generation has had its consciousness raised to believe the idea that homemaking and caring for family is demeaning to women. The June Cleaver “Leave it to Beaver” ideal for womanhood has been replaced with a Carrie Bradshaw “Sex & the City” one. We’ve denigrated the value of marriage, children, home, self-sacrifice, and morality, and elevated the value of independence, career, self-indulgence, and sexual freedom. And our marriages and families have suffered as a result.

Today’s women have realized the feminist dream of being freed from the June Cleaver feminine mystique. But studies indicate that they are more miserable than ever before.

So what are we to do? Should we start playing “Leave it to Beaver” re-runs and tell women they’d be happy if they followed June Cleaver’s example? Should we encourage them to start wearing high heels and pearls while vacuuming? Should we run advertising campaigns that glorify the value of ironing, or disparage women who can’t bake cookies from scratch?

Some people romanticize the fifties, and believe that women would be happy if they squeezed themselves back into that mold. But woman’s happiness does not come from checking off all the boxes on someone’s “perfect woman” list. According to the Bible, happiness flows out of a right relationship with Jesus Christ. Until the spiritual aspect of a woman’s life is in order, her happiness will remain an elusive goal.

That said, the folks in the fifties did get some things right. They placed a high value on character, marriage, children, and morality. They recognized that God created men and women with differences that, when honored, contribute to the well-being and stability of the home. Though not the ultimate foundation of happiness, every woman knows that when her marriage, children, home and relationships are doing well, she feels a whole lot happier than when they are not.

Barbara Billingsley said in 2000, during an interview for the Archive of American Television. “June was a loving, happy stay-at-home mom, which I think is great.” Asked to compare real-life families to TV families, she responded, “I just wish that we could have more families like those. Family is so important, and I just don’t think we have enough people staying home with their babies and their children.” She maintained that “women who stay at home to care for their children may find in it the best—and most important—job they’ll ever have.”

Whether a woman ought to pursue an education, career, or have a job outside of the home is not at question here. The question in my mind is, “Do we as a society believe that family is so important that we uphold caring for home and children as the best and most important job a woman might ever have?”

Let’s just hope that this quintessential June Cleaver-ish idea hasn’t died along with Barbara Billingsley.

References:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/10/16/obit.barbara.billingsley/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/arts/television/17billingsley.htm

The American Dream… even as Christians we often buy into it and equate happiness with what we own instead of our union with Christ. Our worth becomes tied to the size of house we own or what kind of car we drive or our husband’s profession.  We may not realize it until our net worth is stripped from our clutching hands and we’re suddenly faced with this lie head on.  The pull is strong .. very strong.. to live up to the materialistic standards raised by our nation. I feel it possibly stronger than some because I have been plucked out of a life of abundance by God’s sovereign hand and placed in a situation that is so opposite of what most would consider ‘success’.

Yet, life continues as usual … 

Three of my precious little pea pods came to visit Bapa and I last weekend and spend the night. I’ve missed them so, so much. We are now an hour’s drive from two of our children and their families so our visits are farther apart. I was so happy, happy that three of my sweet peas were able to come and spend the night.

They do just fine in our small, little place (less than 300 sq. ft.) and do all the things they normally did when we lived in a home 10 times this size.  On Saturday afternoon my granddaughter was climbing up the ladder to see the cat that lives in the loft above our studio when she turned to me and said, “Grammy, do you wish that you lived in a bigger house?” I looked at her sweet face for just a moment and then confidently responded, “Sweetie, Bapa and I are just as content as we can be living here because we know this is where God wants us to be”.  Immediately, she was satisfied with my answer and turned to finish her journey upstairs.

It’s true, you know! We are content!

A long time friend of mine remarked the other day that ‘this’ situation would have driven me nuts if it had happened over 10 years ago. I pondered for a moment what had made the difference in my life. It didn’t take long to know the answer.. I’ve learned what my purpose is here on earth.. to bring Him glory.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.  1 Cor 10:31   ESV

 If He chooses for me to live in 300 sq. ft. then I can best bring Him glory by embracing His will for my life and learning to be content in whatever He chooses.

Life is no longer about what makes ME happy but about what brings HIM glory.

I want you to go away with a sense of your own weakness, and yet a belief in your own safety. I want you to know that you cannot stand a minute, that you will be damned within another second unless grace keep you out of hell, and yet I want you to feel that since you are in the hand of Christ you cannot perish, neither can any pluck you out thence. And, poor sinners, my heart’s desire is that you may be put into the hand of Christ tonight, that you may have done with trusting yourselves. You can run, but you cannot save yourselves. “Oh Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help found.”

Christ alone can save you, oh look out of self to Christ; trust yourselves in his hands; he is “able to keep you from falling” Jude 24. You cannot even stand upright yourselves, and if he should set you upright you cannot keep so for a minute without his protecting care. If saints need to be kept, how much more need have you to seek the shelter of the Saviour’s wounded side: flee thither as the dove to the cleft of the rock. If holy men of God cry daily for pardon, and profess to have no right of themselves to heaven, how much more urgent is your case.

You must perish if you die as you are. You can never make yourself faultless, but Christ can. He wants to do it: he has opened a fountain for sin and for uncleanness: wash and be clean. Again, I say, look to Jesus. Away with self and cling to Christ, down with self-confidence and up with simple faith in Christ Jesus. I shall not let you go, dear friends, without singing one verse, which I think will express the feeling of each one of us:

“Let me among thy saints he found,
Whene’er the Archangel’s trump shall sound,
To see thy smiling face;
Then loudest of the crowd I’ll sing

(from Spurgeon’s Sermons, Christians Kept in Time and Glorified in Eternity – Jude 1:24,25)

Prayer Answered by Crosses
By John Newton

I asked the Lord that I might grow 

In faith and love and every grace, 

Might more of his salvation know, 

And seek more earnestly his face.

‘Twas he who taught me thus to pray; 

And he, I trust, has answered prayer; 

But it has been in such a way 

As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that, in some favoured hour, 

At once he’d answer my request, 

And by his love’s constraining power 

Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, he made me feel 

The hidden evils of my heart, 

And let the angry powers of hell 

Assault my soul in every part.

Yea, more, with his own hand he seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe, 

Crossed all the fair designs I schemed, 

Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

Lord, why is this? I trembling cried; 

Wilt thou pursue this worm to death? 

This is the way, the Lord replied
I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I now employ 

From self and pride to set thee free,
And break thy schemes of earthly joy, 

That thou may’st seek thy all in me.