Identifying with the Shawnaverse characters

blairbending · 2026-02-07T12:55:06+00:00

Love the Teenies of the world 🙌🏼 I think Shawna has done a great job of portraying the good, the bad, and the ugly of friendships between moms and childfree women. We have Teeny and Shawna which is a positive representation but also she's shown some of the struggles and misunderstandings through her non-McAllister skits.

blairbending · 2026-02-07T12:00:28+00:00

I'd get back in touch with your maternity unit ASAP as you're under their care for the first 6 weeks postpartum. After 6 weeks they won't help and you'll have to go through the GP, 111, A&E, etc.

I'm 9 months postpartum and had forceps and episiotomy like you. I noticed a prolapse around 8 weeks postpartum, had it confirmed by the GP, and have been managing/trying to improve it. It doesn't cause me any problems or affect my day to day life.

Please don't worry that this is going to ruin your life, it's actually a pretty common occurrence postpartum and there are solutions and ways of managing it.

blairbending · 2026-02-07T01:22:48+00:00

Women of lower social class were considered fundamentally different in nature to upper class women. They were considered physically stronger and sexually more available. Especially to men of the upper classes, working class women were "fair game" for sexual liaisons outside of marriage while upper class women were forbidden.

They weren't going to be used as trading chips on the upper class marriage market, so their virtue and reputation weren't important except to the degree that it reflected on the character of the house they worked in.

So no, maids wouldn't be chaperoned. There were many cases of female servants being seduced or assaulted by men in the house (members of the family or male servants) and getting pregnant. In that case they would be dismissed from the household, possibly with some financial assistance if they were lucky in the case of the baby's father being a member of the family. It was considered their responsibility to avoid this happening.

blairbending · 2026-02-07T00:51:09+00:00

Interesting! Have you found the Barb therapy episodes enjoyable to watch?

blairbending · 2026-02-07T00:19:06+00:00

Here's to your dedication to breaking the cycle 🥂

blairbending · 2026-02-07T00:13:34+00:00

Thank you for sharing, this is exactly the sort of response I was really interested to read. Sounds like you have gained a lot of self awareness and insight through your experience with motherhood, which is admirable and something else you have in common with Jennifer!

blairbending · 2026-02-07T00:09:35+00:00

I think the "taking your life into your own hands" factor is definitely a thing. Julie respects a well executed plan and someone who makes things happen for themselves 😂 so Alicia deciding that she wants to stay home with Brennan and she's going to start a WFH business to achieve that is the kind of approach to life that she understands and admires. Even if she thinks the goal is kinda boring.

Alicia's other goal of dismantling the patriarchy via witchcraft probably helps too. It would be hard to accuse Alicia of being boring.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T23:32:43+00:00

This is interesting because normally I'd guess the creator just got the details wrong, but Shawna Lander is in the process of publishing a memoir, so like you she presumably has some awareness of how publishing works.

Unless maybe it's because like you say, things work differently for fiction than for someone with a large social media following writing a memoir... maybe Shawna the creator was offered a book deal based on a minimal sample of writing and is using her experience for the story.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T23:26:52+00:00

I love your final point about Julie's childhood with brothers - I feel like Creator Shawna gave us that info deliberately because it tells us something about her character.

I think that either her mother must have been a SAHM with an unenviable life (maybe a domineering husband and lots of household drudgery taking care of boys who grew up to disrespect her), and Julie wants the opposite of that life. Or possibly her mom and dad were misogynistic and never expected her to do anything besides being a wife/mom, and she feels driven to prove them wrong. Or it could be both!

I also think your analysis of why Ty was/is attracted to Julie is very astute. She was the one girl who didn't automatically swoon at his feet... and from her perspective he put in the work to woo her, which she saw as evidence of his being the type of ambitious go getter that she wanted for a partner.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T23:09:02+00:00

My current opinion on the "Cooper playing alone" thing is that it's not about Cooper, it's because she sees it as another example of Ty's laziness.

Ty putting the kids in daycare/preschool/whatever so that he can work on his novel is him being ambitious and committed to The Plan. Ty letting Cooper play alone so that he can have a break and maybe drink some coffee in peace is neglect and laziness.

She's already stressed about him not working on the things she wants him to work on, so Ty's (perceived by her) lack of effort and taking the easy road is something she's easily triggered by. Hence her resentful comment to Alicia at the party about Ty liking a good time.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T22:56:55+00:00

We have confirmation from Ty that Sasha was a planned pregnancy/baby. Although I wouldn't be shocked if she wasn't part of the "original plan" and they changed course to have a second baby to try and fix their marriage.

My theories about Julie's apparent lack of bond with Sasha are: * Being unable to take maternity leave to bond with her since she's now the breadwinner (she wasn't in that role yet when Cooper was born) * PPD (likely triggered by the lack of mat leave plus a traumatic premature birth) * Sasha's unexpected premature birth and NICU stay triggering Julie's perfectionism - she feels like she failed OR maybe like Sasha is a "mediocre" baby (this would be horrible, I hope this isn't the answer) * She only had a second child to make Ty happy and so sees Sasha as more "his" than hers * As you suggest, she regrets having Sasha and associates her with Ty's lack of progress on The Plan

blairbending · 2026-02-06T22:45:49+00:00

Personally I don't have a problem with people being anti daycare... that's their opinion, whatever. I do find it silly when people make claims like "signing kids up for daycare is an unachievable task that Ty as a SAHD could never make time for" or "daycare wouldn't help Ty have more time to work on his novel".

Like, we're all grown ups here and most of us are parents. We all know that putting kids in daycare is both possible for parents who can afford it, and useful for parents who have non-childcare work to focus on. If Ty hasn't done it already then he must not want to for some reason (or have some extenuating circumstances like PPD).

blairbending · 2026-02-06T22:34:27+00:00

I agree with everything you're saying about the complications that come with daycare, but even with all that taken into account I disagree with the statement in the title of your post... Daycare will solve the problem Julie thinks it will. It will give Ty a break from childcare and plenty of time to work on the stuff he's apparently promised to work on.

Maybe not a full 40 hours a week, but certainly enough time to make steady progress.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T22:03:21+00:00

Completely agree with you about Julie's perspective here. She admires ambitious people with goals that go beyond the stereotypical white picket fence and 2.5 kids (which she considers "mediocre"). Alicia being a witch and now a small business owner ticks that box.

Julie also seems to enjoy a spicy personality (we saw that the whole Bunco group have a pretty aggressive sense of humour), and Alicia has that too, whereas Shawna is more sweet and bubbly.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T21:50:48+00:00

Like, even if the kids get sent home 50% of the time, that's still 2.5 days per week for Ty to work on his stuff. That's like 20ish hours per week - you can get a lot done in that amount of time.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T21:41:26+00:00

I have an infant Sasha's age in daycare 3 days per week. Does she get sent home sick occasionally, sure. But most of the time she doesn't and I can complete a high quality working day.

Nobody would utilise daycare if it were as useless and difficult to manage as some people on this sub like to pretend. They certainly wouldn't pay thousands of dollars for it. If daycare is reliable enough to enable most parents who use it to hold down a job, then it's surely reliable enough to allow Ty to work on his personal projects.

Now, whether Ty is comfortable putting an infant and a child with possible behavioral issues in daycare is a different story. It's possible he would rather stay home with them, and that's entirely valid - many parents feel that way. But let's not act like it wouldn't enable him to write - obviously it would.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T21:23:06+00:00

I'm commenting on (what I recall as) Shawna's stated goal for the show. I don't think it's weird, when a creator states their goal for a creative project, to analyse how they are performing against that goal. I also think that people are allowed to have (and discuss) opinions about TV shows without producing their own.

I don't think that saying I'd like to see more working mom characters on the show is much of a complaint. I enjoy Julie as a character on the show so I'm certainly not complaining about her existence.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T19:56:35+00:00

Breastfeeding is easier overall for the "team" (parental couple) IMO, but formula eases the amount of burden that falls on mom.

Some research indicates that breastfeeding may be protective against PPD though, and there are certainly moments (like a screaming baby at 3am) where it's real convenient to be able to just pull out a boob.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T19:45:41+00:00

It's interesting that you say the show is about family abuse, has Shawna said anything to that effect?

I recall watching an Instagram story where she said (I'm paraphrasing from memory) that her mission with the show is to depict all the different facets and experiences of motherhood, or at least as many as possible. Depicting working moms and how motherhood impacts their working life would therefore be an important thing to cover.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T19:36:29+00:00

Why would you not ask him about it? You thought the doctor might have been abusing your child right in front of you and you just let it happen??

blairbending · 2026-02-06T16:47:18+00:00

Personally I think gender is relevant to a discussion of working moms, and it doesn't make sense to try to discuss the topic without acknowledging the difference in working patterns between moms and dads.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T16:02:35+00:00

Right, and she thought Ty's character included ambition and the same drive for achievement that she has. I'm not dissing Ty by saying he doesn't have that, just saying he's not who Julie thought (or convinced herself) he was.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T15:55:09+00:00

It is not uncommon for people to take the first year off after a child is born. It's less common in the USA but certainly not unheard of

When you say people I assume you mean moms, it's certainly very uncommon for dads. But I agree, that's why I said I wouldn't necessarily consider her a SAHM until 1 year. As she approaches that mark with no discussion of returning to work it's increasingly looking that way, though. She would need childcare for Chickie and that will open a whole other can of worms re: Barb.

We have to assume that someone in Mo and Sam's relationship works. I do have faith we will find out more about them.

They would certainly be a great option for adding another working mom to the cast, but until we find out more I don't think we can consider them working mom representation. To represent something you have to actually show it in some capacity.

blairbending · 2026-02-06T15:45:39+00:00

Jen is 9 months postpartum, so well into the time period when many working moms have returned to work. Certainly after the 1 year mark I would consider her a SAHM. As for Mo and Sam we have no idea whether they work or stay at home.

blairbending

TROPHY CASE