- Wow!
- ♫ Welcome home, family.
Well, that was terrible.
(grunting)
- Ahhh!
(swing music)
- [Narrator] This week
we are gonna be the perfect homemakers.
- People talk about what an ideal time
the mid-century was for families.
This week, we're gonna give it a try
and see if we can live up to that
mid-century domestic ideal.
- We have this handy chart that tells us
what the perfect wife is and we get to grade ourselves.
How exciting.
- [Ochi] And scary.
- Someone
is gonna be negative.
- Hey.
(swing music)
- [Morgan] Puts her cold feet on her husband
at night to warm them.
- A husband should be there to warm you up.
That's what I say.
So negative one for me.
- [Morgan] Religious, sends children to church
or Sunday school and goes herself, well.
- I could have had 10 points for this one.
That sucks.
- Has meals on time.
(laughing) No.
- I can cook about two dinners.
- Can carry on an interesting conversation.
I mean, I think I'm funny and fascinating, so yeah.
- Good sense of humor, jolly, and gay.
Can't you tell?
- Can play a musical instrument.
Your wife is just there to entertain you
with her interesting conversations
and her violin playing.
What the hell?
- Dresses for breakfast.
I don't eat breakfast and I don't dress, so.
- Man, it's not looking good.
- [Rose] I'm very poor, parenthesis failure.
I'm a failure as a wife and a mother apparently.
- As suspected I am a total failure.
- That doesn't sound that great.
But I heard that it's higher than Ochi.
- When I looked at this, my initial reaction was disgust.
I would think that at the time that my grandmother was
this American housewife,
she wanted to do these things.
It just makes me angry to think that
somebody could have looked at her
and been checking off boxes.
She handled her house and her life
and her children with grace.
I will be channeling her and I also want to
pay a little homage to her and all the parts she did.
And see if I can do it too, right?
- After having my son, I got to have year maternity leave.
So, I got used to what it's like to be a stay at home mom
and I really loved it.
So decided to quit my job and not go back to work.
You're always thinking about am I doing it right?
I'm just nervous about these rules.
About what my role's supposed to be.
Hopefully it won't make me unhappy with my choices.
- My family dynamic has been heavily shaped by
my post-partum depression and OCD.
So, my husband has been running our household,
as the primary caretaker for going on seven years now.
I have to live up to what he is already so
efficient at and what he already does so well.
It's kind of scary to ask him to step aside
and let me take the reigns of something
that I have, quite honestly, failed at in the past.
Are you guys as stressed out about this as I am?
- I am so stressed about it.
- I'm just nervous my husband's going to get used to it.
(laughing)
- Supposed to dress myself before I do anything else.
I don't want to do it.
- I'm wearing my grandma's apron now.
I feel really hot in this things.
Maybe it's oppression I feel.
- I'm planning what I'm gonna do this week.
Here it is.
Different church everyday 'cause that's the big points.
- I don't think Rose going to church counts.
She walked in and then James got bored and then she left.
That doesn't count.
- This morning I decided to get up
and go balls to the wall put together
and care for my family at the same time.
- [Ochi] Hey, guys, what are you doing?
I was supposed to make you breakfast.
- We were waiting for you for a while.
- [Ochi] How can I get ready and presentable?
- You have to be presentable?
- Check out my outfit.
I think it's okay
for what I'm trying to accomplish this week.
- I failed.
I still have curlers in.
My husband's gone to work
and now my mom's here feeding my daughter breakfast.
- [Rose] Outsourcing the cleaning tasks.
Thank you.
- I went to get a glass for coffee
and Scott has cleaned the kitchen.
And ran the dishwasher.
(laughing)
- [Morgan Narrating] In a lot of ways it was heartbreaking
because it was a reminder of how little faith
he has in me as a homemaker
and how truly earned
that lack of faith has been.
- I can't do it, I'm too tired.
This is so much effort.
- This is not easy.
- So stressed out right now.
I had a last minute meeting.
I have no food.
I have nothing prepared.
It said I had to have meals delivered on time.
It didn't say that they had to be homemade.
If those ladies had Postmates,
they'd be using it.
The more I tried to check each box off on the guide.
It was just one failure after another after another.
- So I was going to clean the kitchen,
but I made these amazing pancakes.
And Delilah asked me to sit with her while she ate them.
And you know what?
It's a lot more fun.
- [Ochi] What do you want for breakfast, Pam.
The one thing I know how to make.
I think I would love to keep cooking going forward.
- I was really surprised
that I actually enjoyed cooking this week.
Dinner is served.
It looks okay.
There was a really great satisfaction in it.
- It was mainly the gratitude on my family's face.
I'm really happy that I feel like doing it more for
my own reasons for my family.
But going forward, I'm not gonna be cooking
because that's what the wife chart told me to do.
- This scale has been haunting me this whole week.
It's been on my fridge and I stare at it and I get angry.
Goodbye, patriarchy.
- I still sewed no buttons, darned no socks.
- Darn it, did not accomplish this task again.
- Neat house keeper.
Mmmmmmmm.
- Has meals on time?
No, I did not do that one.
No meals were on time.
- I know they mean dresses nice for breakfast,
but I don't care.
I had clothes on.
- I think I did better.
- [Rose] Wait, what?
Wow, that's crazy.
I must have cheated.
- Woohoo! I'm average.
- I just got so excited that I raised up
on this horrible scale.
Then I realized I don't care.
There's no such thing as a perfect homemaker.
Nor should there be.
- The only perfect is the best that you can be
for yourself and for your family.
- It just made me really happy
to be in such an equal partnership with my husband.
- When I looked at this sheet, I was angry.
And I thought women shouldn't have to do this.
This is bullshit.
But as I went through the week, I realized
that my own husband was doing all of these things
and that's not right either.
After this week, I'm committed to
creating an equal partnership in the home.
- Being a stay at home mom has been my choice.
Back then women didn't have a choice.
- Maybe grandma had this idyllic life
because that was the only option for her.
Once it started getting into the 70s,
she went back to school and got her degree.
Who knows what she would have accomplished with her life
if those opportunities had been there
for her when she was younger.
- No one should have to devote their entire life
to their family because it is expected of them.
- To me this is such a special role,
but in the future hope that people can enjoy it
and not feel so many external pressures.
- I don't think a woman can have it all.
Having it all is trying to do everything
that society tells you you should have.
I believe that a woman can have everything that she wants.
So what's really important is knowing
what you want for yourself and for your family.
(calming music)