S11.E04: Episode 4

[Rootbeer]

11 minutes ago, kwnyc said:

One of the reasons I like Sister Julienne is that she does have a lot of conventional views for the time...but she's willing to consider newer opinions and change her mind, which is what makes her a great leader. From "The Sound of Music" to letting Nancy stay (even though she's an unwed mother), Sister Julienne manages to put the people before the rules when it seems necessary.

But, as one of those who had some exposure to nuns and their POV back in the 60's, it is anomalous that not a single nun objects to having Nancy living with them or thinks her daughter would be better off if she was adopted by a married couple.  It wasn't just nuns who were close minded about this stuff back in the '60's.  Like a lot of shows set in a different era, there is an anachronistic POV.  For that matter, even when we've seen Lucille and Cyril subjected to subtle or not so subtle racism; it is a bit much to think that all of the 'good guys' of the main cast are equally comfortable calling it out or that some of them don't have some veiled prejudices themselves.

Back in the '60's, fewer than 10% of kids were raised in single parent homes and most of those were due to divorce or death.  Very few single mothers raised their children on their own.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Rootbeer

[kwnyc]

10 minutes ago, Rootbeer said:

Like a lot of shows set in a different era, there is an anachronistic POV. 

You're right. But the show runners probably think it would alienate the viewers if they showed people acting more like things actually were in that time period (and sometimes now). As Roy Kent said in Ted Lasso: "My father's from East London. OF COURSE he's racist!"

[amarante]

45 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

I think the Danes still do this. There was a giant uproar in NYC a few years back because a Danish tourist left her baby outside a restaurant. Police were called, CPS got involved; it was a mess. I think eventually the Danish consulate stepped in and had to explain things.

 

I remember that incident because I was on a forum and evidently there are neighborhoods in New York City in which it is common practice for babies to be left outside in strollers because there is no room in the small stores for strollers.

The forum was evenly divided between those who thought it was okay and those who were appalled.

[proserpina65]

2 hours ago, Rootbeer said:

But, as one of those who had some exposure to nuns and their POV back in the 60's, it is anomalous that not a single nun objects to having Nancy living with them or thinks her daughter would be better off if she was adopted by a married couple. 

Would it make a difference that the nuns on Call the Midwife aren't Catholic nuns?  My exposure to nuns of any kind is extremely limited, so I don't really know.

[dubbel zout]

According to Wiki, Anglican nuns take a vow of chastity. Regardless, sex outside marriage was frowned upon by society in general, so I agree there should have been at least one nun who side eyed Nancy for having a child out of wedlock.

2 hours ago, Rootbeer said:

it is a bit much to think that all of the 'good guys' of the main cast are equally comfortable calling it out or that some of them don't have some veiled prejudices themselves.

Exactly. I'd like to see someone on the nonprogressive side more often, if only to shake things up a bit. 

[kwnyc]

5 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

I agree there should have been at least one nun who side eyed Nancy for having a child out of wedlock.

2 hours ago, Rootbeer said:

Of the nuns we've seen? Not this (small) lot. And Sister Julienne said she'd take it up with the Mother Superior. Maybe Miss Higgins gave her the side eye, along with Nancy being IRISH. Certainly not Phyllis! (Wasn't she born out of wedlock?) Trixie wouldn't give a rat's ass, and maybe Lucille might mildly disapprove.

[emmawoodhouse]

Lucille seems to be the most conservative person working at Nonanntus. 

[dubbel zout]

I just want someone to be unreasonable for more than one episode.

[MissLucas]

The show has always struggled to incorporate mindsets that are at loggerheads with progressive, liberal views of today. As a historian that annoys me because it vilifies people without acknowledging that they often simply adhered to what was mainstream thinking  - just like we do today. And I'm pretty sure in about 20 years from now on a lot of opinions and views we have will be frowned upon.

That said the show has occasionally tried to be more nuanced. That's why I wanted more and better stories for Sister Winifred - she was not okay with homosexuality and struggled with one of her patients who had become pregnant out of wedlock (the teacher who tried to a DIY abortion). I also appreciated the episode were Sister Evangelina's 'salt of the earth' approach to a problem wasn't working and she admitted her fault and the pain it caused. 

[amarante]

I am not sure the program itself is "woke" but that the midwives have experienced every kind of human issue and so are not the kind of cloistered hypocritical religious types in terms of condemning people who were young or trying to do the best under difficult circumstances.

The whole show throughout the seasons has really been about how the sisters can effectively operate in the community because the people trust them because they treat them without judgment. There have been shows where they have taken a "moral" stance such as whether to run a birth control clinic when the pill became available.

 

[dubbel zout]

14 minutes ago, amarante said:

they treat them without judgment

I'm fine with that. But we don't even get scenes of them talking about the patients they might privately be judging. I have a really hard time believing everyone is totes fine with everything they come across. There's always a resolution. I know, this is a TV show. But if you're going to bring up social issues, I think you owe it to the audience to have some conflict about it that's more than just someone needing to see the light.

[EllaWycliffe]

14 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

I'm fine with that. But we don't even get scenes of them talking about the patients they might privately be judging. I have a really hard time believing everyone is totes fine with everything they come across. There's always a resolution. I know, this is a TV show. But if you're going to bring up social issues, I think you owe it to the audience to have some conflict about it that's more than just someone needing to see the light.

When they do, its usually the Buckles with Mrs. Buckle always presented as the unreasonable jerk about things while Fred is the kindly wise one. Honestly these two remind me of Mr and Mrs Olsen on Little House on the Prairie - when in doubt, let Mrs Buckle be the bitch about it. 

[amarante]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

I'm fine with that. But we don't even get scenes of them talking about the patients they might privately be judging. I have a really hard time believing everyone is totes fine with everything they come across. There's always a resolution. I know, this is a TV show. But if you're going to bring up social issues, I think you owe it to the audience to have some conflict about it that's more than just someone needing to see the light.

Could you be more specific because as I recall there have been episodes in which individual midwives expressed their moral uncertainties.

There was some issue of kicking Nancy out of the program last season because nurses were supposed to be morally irreproachable.

I just think especially in a community like Poplar there was a lot of premarital sex. The doctor acknowledged that even though homosexuality was no longer criminal it would still carry a stigma. When the boy who was university bound got his girlfriend pregnant there was a practical solution but when there was no pregnancy no one thought they should still get married just because they had sex - I just don't think that people were that black and white in terms of morality.

[Daff]

2 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

According to Wiki, Anglican nuns take a vow of chastity. Regardless, sex outside marriage was frowned upon by society in general, so I agree there should have been at least one nun who side eyed Nancy for having a child out of wedlock.

Exactly. I'd like to see someone on the nonprogressive side more often, if only to shake things up a bit. 

It’s an interesting dilemma, because these are nuns who chose to become midwives. They’ve sworn oaths to two professions/avocations where conflicts may arise. And, initially, when Nancy’s situation was known, a good number of them assumed she’d be thrown out. It was only the deception of the order who sent her (they lied, with the absolute intention of making her someone else’s “problem”), that made everyone settle down and consider real solutions. 

[dubbel zout]

23 minutes ago, amarante said:

Could you be more specific because as I recall there have been episodes in which individual midwives expressed their moral uncertainties.

I never said the midwives didn't bring up their own moral uncertainties. They are able to disagree for as long as the episode lasts, then they either drop the subject or see the light. It's basically for every issue the show brings up.

At this point, I'd settle for a midwife groaning about seeing a tetchy regular patient.

This is the last I'll post about this. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. (One that I killed, heh.)

[JudyObscure]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

This is the last I'll post about this. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse.

I'm with you, 100%.  I want to see how the housewives of Poplar reacted to things just as much as I like seeing how they did laundry and where they kept the baby carriage.  It's history!

They might have had a lot of sex in Poplar in the 1960s, but if the girl got pregnant the boy almost always, "did the right thing."  Even if it meant going AWOL as we've seen.  The unmarried birth rate was 3%  in the U. S. at that time and I figure it was about the same in England.   Compared to unmarried births being about 40% now it is without a doubt one of the biggest, fastest social changes in history.

It wasn't until the 1970's that most people began to sympathize with the single mother.  Before that all the sympathy was with the "poor child being raised without a father," (sometimes called "without a name") and it was assumed the child would be outcast and called a bastard.

I would like to see Dr. Turner and some of the midwives notice  the social  change and talk about it, at the very least.

[MartyQui]

On 1/24/2022 at 9:26 AM, bybrandy said:

But after me waiting for Matthew to be ready to date we see her on a couple of kid dates and don't get to see her at all on their non kid date.

I was disappointed in that too, but I wonder if Helen George had to limit her working time…she looked pretty pregnant, and maybe she was exhausted, or worried about Covid.

On 4/11/2022 at 1:10 PM, Sarah 103 said:

. I thought the show did an excellent job of showing how the trauma impacted not only the generation that survived it but also how they raised the next generation.

I work with a doctor whose parents survived the Holocaust because they were on Schindler’s List, and you can tell that he was raised to look for the worst outcome, although he has made that work for him in his research.

Because I know him, and other children of survivors, this episode really hit home for me.  I thought they did a really good job.

[Badger]

In the finale of Series 10, Sister Hilda said that 11% of the babies in Poplar were born to unmarried mothers and that even during the war, it was 10%.  That was part of the justification for keeping Nancy.

[cinsays]

22 hours ago, Mermaid Under said:

I got the impression the home was supposed to deal with feeding issues (and the mastitis that was related to that).   Trixie and Sister J. mentioned her mental state, but never identified it as postpartum depression, which I think is a modern term.   Having folks around 24/7 to support her with breastfeeding would probably also help with her depression, but I didn't get the impression that that was the point of admitting her to this home. 

I think they covered a few too many storylines in this episode, and I couldn't bring myself to care too much about any of them.   With the sisters, I'm sure their memories of how their mother treated them were completely different.  The younger twin feeling constantly compared unfavorably to the older twin, the older twin noticing nothing of the sort.   Was the mother really to blame for the younger twin's insecurities?  It would depend on who you talk to.

of course the older one didn't notice.  she was getting all the support and love she needed and that was what she was concerned about

[kwnyc]

2 hours ago, cinsays said:

of course the older one didn't notice.  she was getting all the support and love she needed and that was what she was concerned about

I thought it was sloppy that they didn't mention OR show either of their husbands. That could have played well into why the younger twin was spiraling.

[EllaWycliffe]

2 hours ago, cinsays said:

of course the older one didn't notice.  she was getting all the support and love she needed and that was what she was concerned about

In fairness, the "older one" would have been pregnant with twins during the "younger one's" first few weeks of having a newborn baby. Younger twin would also have needed to feel comfortable enough sharing that she was having difficulty and that might have been part of the problem as well. For a twin, the elder seemed a bit clueless to her sister's feelings but I didn't get a "Its all about meeee! Its ALWAYS about meeee!" vibe from her - she seemed genuinely affectionate to her sister and her sister's baby.

I mean, we didn't see ANY family for either woman, we just have the younger twin's claims that she was always the runt.

[cinsays]

1 hour ago, EllaWycliffe said:

In fairness, the "older one" would have been pregnant with twins during the "younger one's" first few weeks of having a newborn baby. Younger twin would also have needed to feel comfortable enough sharing that she was having difficulty and that might have been part of the problem as well. For a twin, the elder seemed a bit clueless to her sister's feelings but I didn't get a "Its all about meeee! Its ALWAYS about meeee!" vibe from her - she seemed genuinely affectionate to her sister and her sister's baby.

I mean, we didn't see ANY family for either woman, we just have the younger twin's claims that she was always the runt.

I was talking about the years growing up, not specifically with the births

[Sarah 103]

12 hours ago, EllaWycliffe said:

For a twin, the elder seemed a bit clueless to her sister's feelings but I didn't get a "Its all about meeee! Its ALWAYS about meeee!" vibe from her - she seemed genuinely affectionate to her sister and her sister's baby.

I would agree with that. The older twin is clueless, but not mean or intentionally hurtful to her younger twin. 

[J-Man]

I'm thinking that forcing Mr. Rosen to give up contact with fur should have been a nudge to get him out of that business altogether, given what's going to happen to the fur industry in a few decades.

I'm not sure I understood why they inserted that scene about the decriminalization of homosexual acts since it had nothing to do with this week's plots. It seems like that would have been a more appropriate scene for PBS to edit out.

[eel21788]

On 4/12/2022 at 9:24 AM, Rootbeer said:

Back in the '60's, fewer than 10% of kids were raised in single parent homes and most of those were due to divorce or death.  Very few single mothers raised their children on their own.

As a kid the '60s, I thought there was some rule that required that two adults live in the household if both parents weren't present.

Our next-door neighbors had a divorced mother and their grandmother lived with them. I also had a friend whose mother died when she and her sister were 4 and 6. Her grandmother lived with them until their father remarried four years later. 

Those were the only "non-traditional" households I knew about, except for one kid who lived with his grandparents.

[Sarah 103]

1 hour ago, J-Man said:

I'm not sure I understood why they inserted that scene about the decriminalization of homosexual acts since it had nothing to do with this week's plots. It seems like that would have been a more appropriate scene for PBS to edit out.

My guess based on nothing more than pure speculation is that's setting something up later in the season. 

[J-Man]

2 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

My guess based on nothing more than pure speculation is that's setting something up later in the season. 

Maybe Timmy Turner will bring home a boyfriend!

[EllaWycliffe]

1 hour ago, J-Man said:

Maybe Timmy Turner will bring home a boyfriend!

A part of me would not be shocked.... 

[eel21788]

17 hours ago, J-Man said:

Maybe Timmy Turner will bring home a boyfriend!

Let me finish that sentence for you:

who has been disowned by his family, so now Dr. Turner has to intervene using his magical powers to be able to turn them around in one episode.

[jschoolgirl]

On 4/12/2022 at 4:33 PM, amarante said:

The doctor acknowledged that even though homosexuality was no longer criminal it would still carry a stigma.

I sense an anvil there.

[Dehumidifier]

18 hours ago, eel21788 said:

Let me finish that sentence for you:

who has been disowned by his family, so now Dr. Turner has to intervene using his magical powers to be able to turn them around in one episode.

Or Dr. Turner finds out that he's not so accepting when it's his own kid.

[EllaWycliffe]

13 minutes ago, Dehumidifier said:

Or Dr. Turner finds out that he's not so accepting when it's his own kid.

To be fair, character wise, its Shelagh I'd see having the big issue. And I kid but I hope they don't go there with Tim if only because, forgive me for being mean, he's not the greatest actor on the show and they can't really recast him and its a plot line that would need some range beyond "I love you Dad! You're my everthing!"

Although his childhood daddy fixation now makes me wonder....

[Dehumidifier]

1 minute ago, EllaWycliffe said:

To be fair, character wise, its Shelagh I'd see having the big issue. And I kid but I hope they don't go there with Tim if only because, forgive me for being mean, he's not the greatest actor on the show and they can't really recast him and its a plot line that would need some range beyond "I love you Dad! You're my everthing!"

Although his childhood daddy fixation now makes me wonder....

But he's not her biological child, no matter how much she may have come to love him.

[EllaWycliffe]

I just see it pinging her religious side harder. 

[Dehumidifier]

13 minutes ago, EllaWycliffe said:

I just see it pinging her religious side harder. 

I'd rather see them explore how people who think they are very open minded and tolerant often aren't when it actually involves them.

[Haleth]

About the mom that was having nursing issues, am I the only one who was yelling at the tv to just give the baby a bottle?  Yeah breast is best and all, but the poor baby was hungry!  Not every woman is cut out to nurse. 

The actor playing Samuel reminded me of Matthew Rhys.

Edited April 17, 2022 by Haleth

[jschoolgirl]

13 hours ago, EllaWycliffe said:

Although his childhood daddy fixation now makes me wonder....

Tim lost his mother at around age 8. Of course he would focus on his father.

[EllaWycliffe]

20 minutes ago, jschoolgirl said:

Tim lost his mother at around age 8. Of course he would focus on his father.

Oh to a point I am teasing but we are talking about the kid who was telling Daddy not to smoke because "you're my everything". 

I wouldn't be shocked if they were building a "Tim is gay" storyline. As it is, has he ever dated or expressed an interest in females beyond learning the technicalities of their anatomy? Has Tim ever had a female friend his own age, let alone a girl friend?

[AZChristian]

10 hours ago, EllaWycliffe said:

I wouldn't be shocked if they were building a "Tim is gay" storyline. As it is, has he ever dated or expressed an interest in females beyond learning the technicalities of their anatomy? Has Tim ever had a female friend his own age, let alone a girl friend?

Nor has he ever dated or expressed an interest in males.  I don't think they've ever shown him have a friend of either/any gender, other than interactions with his scout troop.  

[MissLucas]

He took up  the bassoon to impress a young lady - if that's not love I don't know what is! (It was in S6.7 - one of the notoriously cut scenes.)

[EllaWycliffe]

9 minutes ago, AZChristian said:

Nor has he ever dated or expressed an interest in males.  I don't think they've ever shown him have a friend of either/any gender, other than interactions with his scout troop.  

Its not 2022 on the show its 1967, would people in 1967 where it literally just stopped being an arrest and chemical castration in this very episode be discussing their homosexuality publicly?

Trust me when I say I have no great desire to see this particular storyline play out - Call the Midwife isn't good at it and frankly the actor playing Tim isn't that good of an actor. But realistically this isn't something he'd be expressing an interest in or talking about because up until recently it meant getting arrested. 

[eel21788]

15 hours ago, Haleth said:

About the mom that was having nursing issues, am I the only one who was yelling at the tv to just give the baby a bottle?  Yeah breast is best and all, but the poor baby was hungry!  Not every woman is cut out to nurse. 

In the US, by 1967 more babies were being bottle fed than breast fed. The resurgence in breast feeding didn't come until the 1980s or maybe the late '70s.

I don't know about the UK.

[Sarah 103]

16 hours ago, EllaWycliffe said:

I wouldn't be shocked if they were building a "Tim is gay" storyline. As it is, has he ever dated or expressed an interest in females beyond learning the technicalities of their anatomy? Has Tim ever had a female friend his own age, let alone a girl friend?

I know he went to see the Rolling Stones with someone, but I don't remember who it was. 

[theatremouse]

I liked seeing the Rosen storyline because representation, whoo. But the more I watched it the less I liked it. They wanted me to believe this super traumatized survivor never told his wife any of this stuff, but he told a nun and a doctor his whole story just because they asked? He was his own exposition fairy. It was really clunky.