Reply #45: I grew up with "Father Knows Best" and the rest as well, but for some

[Cleita]

reason or the other my middle class home was not as fancy as theirs. My clothes were much cheaper. My bicycle was second hand. Most of the kids I went to school with were economically where my family was, not where the sitcom families were. Yet, Jim Anderson was able to achieve all this with a job in an insurance company. Ozzie Nelson didn't have a job. All the mothers did their housework in high heels, pearls and fully made up. My mother wore ratty clothes around the house you could work in and only dressed up to go shopping. The Nelsons, Andersons and et al were able to achieve an affluence with ordinary jobs that wasn't possible in the real world. I think most of us realized it was pure fantasy. Also, did you ever notice how the parents always agreed with each other and never had fights? Yet, the majority had enough just not a lot of extra so we were truly middle class back then.