I also see parental coddling go too far. During my older stepdaughter’s college orientation this summer, there was a father who became unglued when his daughter had to go into the orientation room alone.

“But she’s in there without me,” he insisted, as he kept trying to get in. “She’s ALONE in there.”

His kid was in a brightly lit room, surrounded by about 200 other young adults. Alone? Hardly.

So I get it.

But in general — as I have said before — I think that demonstrating love and connection is a good thing. Doing more of that as opposed to less is even more of a good thing.

Yes, allowing your child room to grow and explore is important. I’m just saying that I see more parents asking themselves, now, whether they are doing a good job with their children, and making changes to do more. In the world of my childhood, that question simply didn’t get asked. People assumed that their children were fine and proceeded with that assumption — whether or not it was correct.

Your last comment re: “modern parents”…as a teacher, all I can say is the helicopter parents and their overcoddled children are not necessarily an improvement on MM parents Don and Betty- they just exemplify a different set of neuroses! As with everything else in life, every era has its upsides and downsides. Frankly, I like the boundaries between adults and children of the MM days… I’d prefer a little more communication and affection towards the children in the Draper household, but they are WASPs, don’t forget, LOL. These days, many “grownups” still want to act like their children’s peers, instead of their parents. “Parental wisdom” is starting to feel like an oxymoron at my school (generalization, but generally true)

About the child world and the adult world: that is exactly what I remember. I also remember that we (the children) generally had the outside, while adult-world was pretty much indoors. The adults of my formative years were none too comfortable outdoors … unless there were chairs.

Call them the patio-furniture generation.

The daily goal of every child I knew was to get outside. That was it: outside was freedom, honesty, life as it was meant to be lived. Sure, there was a Lord-of-the-Flies quality to it (especially given that even our toys were designed to kill us), but at least we knew where we stood.

My best friend’s mom, on the other hand, reacted to her divorce by sitting in the same chair by the pool all day, smoking and talking to me as if I understood what she was talking about. I felt like a potted plant … probably because I once caught her continuing the conversation with the plant once I walked away.

Yeah. What she was smoking? Not cigarettes.

So adults were weird. We knew this. Which was why, on the very rare occasions when something happened that required adult assistance, we knew where to go for help. Some doorbells you never rang, and you knew why — even though those people were home. There was normal parent, like mine; weird parent, like my best friend’s; and wacky hatstand nuts parent, like Dougie’s.

The police knew the wacky hatstand nuts parent. Yes, even then.

Modern parents, by comparison, do an absolutely incredible job with their children. The changes that have occurred between then and now are mindblowing. Parents, I mean this: hats off to you all.

Whatever it is it definitely is tied into her wasteline, which is another brilliantly subtle non-verbal clue from Weiner & Co.

Her comments about said engagement are all too perky and conformist for Joan.

I think Joan is engaged. She is at the age (at least back then) that you had to be married or people would start to snicker that she was an “old maid”. True story…when I bought my first home with my fiance back in 1973 I was classified as a “spinster” on the deed as we weren’t married.

Can’t wait for next Sunday!

When adults commented on my advanced vocabulary, I knew it was largely the because I knew I was not invited to participate in adult conversations too often, so instead I listened to them a lot.

There were no well-planned playdates or any interest in what a child did while out playing. The playground’s ground cover was gravel — seriously.

Adults believed they supervised their kids, believed in sincerely, but not so much. We were usually in sight or hearing of someone’s parent, as we tended to gravitate to our various yards, but since parents weren’t really focused on us it wasn’t really supervision by 2008 standards, and they’d be more likely to tell us to keep it down than anything else.

Which meant there was plenty of time spent stumbling in and out of dangerous situations that would terrify modern parents.

I agree. Given that time period, there’s no way she could afford a lie of that magnitude.

I think she feels the limitations of her age and looks crashing in on her given the gender roles of that time.

Joan may not be in love with the Doctor, but see’s what he has to offer with regards to stabilty. Im not sure she really thinks she has to give up her job because of marriage and perhaps announcing the engagement to the office had a worse effect than the girls finding out her age. Now, they may not take her as seriously because she is on her way out and perhaps that loss of power is starting to dawn on her.

This whole fake engagement notion strikes me as silly. Joan went out and bought herself a diamond? How? She doesnt’ make enough and a single woman in those days couldn’t get credit. A year or more’s income just to pretend she’s getting married? Wacky.