My mother’s problems also included the housewife malaise described by Betty Friedan, a husband taking full advantage of the ’50s “head of the household” ethos to control her, and the repercussions in her adult life from a childhood with an abusive father.

But barbituates prescribed as “tranquilizers” may well have been the tipping point in her suicide.

After initial testing that indicated barbituates helped sedate agitated and agressive patients in mental hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry decided to widen the market, with 1950s ads directed at doctors recommending them as a cure for unhappy housewives, so there were bound to be casaulties.

Of course, the actual cure for “unhappy housewives” was the women’s movement, but that’s another story.

Also, the other night when Kodak announced that they were dropping Kodachrome, ABC News did a news bit on it, and they included a scene from “The Carousel” when Don is describing the slide projector!

Which kept her sedated enough to complain less to her husband (which may have been the point), but she was bitter still in the early ’70s “I can’t remember my children’s childhood. They took that away from me.”

My own mother was clinically depressed (which I’m sure was described differently in the ’50s), which may have been genetic in her family, but her father had also been an abusive alcoholic.

My mother saw a psychiatrist, unusual enough in our lower middle-class community, and I’m told checked herself into the local mental hospital at least once, but her downfall may have been the barbituates the psychiatrist prescribed.

Described as “tranquilizers” then, it’s now known that barbituates can have a depressing effect, which increased my mother’s depression to the point that she killed herself in 1960.

So much for the “mothers little helpers” the Rolling Stones sang about in ‘66.

As far as Francine’s craziness, that scene where she talks about killing everyone was scary. I remeber my mom telling me that after her pregnancies, she and her friends would all go to this doctor who specialized in weight loss. He basically gave them speed, as much as they wanted. I was shocked at the time. LOL

It reminded me of the book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood – the abusive 1960s mother, Vivi Walker, was on Dexamyl (half Dexedrine,
half Miltown) before she beat her children. Bad stuff.

We discussed maybe post-partum psychosis with Francine back at the end of S1; somehow she had to find a way to get it back together.