Parenthood – Admit it, you felt badly for the parents in this one

We all knew that when Adam and Kristina banned Haddie from seeing Alex and then slammed the door on all future discussion on the subject that that would not be the end of the story. As expected, this week 16-year-old Haddie lied to her parents, enlisted the help of her cousin Amber, an expert at parental deception, and went on a romantic date with her 19-year-old recovering alcoholic boyfriend.

While a guilt-ridden Kristina offered chocolate chip pancake and room make-over bribes to Haddie to attempt to make up for the fact that she felt terrible about the break-up-with-Alex directive, I kept wondering how Adam and Kristina will deal with it when they eventually learn that Haddie’s still seeing him.

It’s not as though this is the first time Haddie had lied to her parents about boys or her whereabouts. Last season, she had a boyfriend, went out on dates with him and even met his parents without ever having mentioned him to Adam and Kristina, who, on the show, are obviously meant to be the role model parents. (Joel and Julia come in a close second.) So when they discover that Haddie’s lying again, only this time violating a direct parental order, what can or will they do? Will Haddie  — the president of her class who gets good grades, plays soccer and volunteers to help the poor — be grounded for weeks? Locked up in a tower like Rapunzel?

Oftentimes, TV parents with teens have to come to grips with meatier issues like when teens are abusing drugs or alcohol, having sex/getting pregnant, committing crimes or doing poorly in school/cheating. But parents of stereotypically “good” kids whose sole “crime” is disobedience (some might call it attempting to become independent), don’t get a lot of play on primetime TV, so watching Parenthood deal with Haddie’s refusal to listen to her parents while she, in all other areas of her life is a model citizen, should prove interesting. I hope the writers don’t let us down.

With Amber, on the other hand, we’ve seen from the get-go that she’s an older soul who embraces her own uniqueness and holds close to her heart some deep, sometimes scary feelings that periodically cause her to act out. Amber does well in school, but she’s apt to get into trouble and her mother Sarah, who’s divorced from a substance abusing rock musician, doesn’t hold unrealistic expectations that Amber will ever be a Haddie.

Despite all that, there was something poignant in the scenes with Amber and Sarah around the subject of Amber playing songs she’d written at an open mike night. The edgy Amber was abjectly terrified that she’d decided to throw herself into the arena, to take this risk that people might hate her music. And Sarah, being a mother, wanted to try to make it all okay, to protect her daughter (like Kristina is trying to protect Haddie from continuing with a relationship that’s too mature for her age).

Sarah tried to eliminate roadblocks that might get in the way of a smooth performance by suggesting that Amber simplify her song. The end result of that advice was for Amber to withdraw into herself and announce that she wouldn’t perform. Her mother’s criticism had shaken her, even though that’s the opposite of what Sarah was trying to do.

Amber regained her mojo after Sarah repaired the accidental damage she’d caused by simplifying her own message to her daughter by telling her that she was proud of her and her courage, and that her songs were amazing. (The coaching Sarah received from her mother Camille on how parents can’t inoculate their children from the pain and disappointment of life was a wonderful intergenerational moment. This show criminally underutilizes Camille.) I think the tone this storyline achieved was what the writers have been going for all along with the Sarah-Amber relationship, only they’d never fully delivered the emotional punch until this episode.

Speaking of parenting … Adam came face to face with the new man-child boss Corey, who it seems Adam’s going to be forced to parent. This has the potential to be a fascinating development, a heck of a lot more fascinating than having Billy Baldwin play the boss who’s sleeping with Sarah. Watching the crisply dressed family man burst into Corey’s “office,” where Corey and his peeps were using a bong and playing with toys, was a culture clash of epic proportions. (I kept wondering what the pot-smoking Nate Fisher from Six Feet Under would’ve made of the scene.)

With Corey telling Adam that everything he and the shoe company had done is stuffy and dated and, frankly, sucks, and that they need to go in a radically different direction was essentially saying that Adam’s an old has-been, which definitely hurt, though not as much as being told that there are no jobs out there to which Adam could flee. I wonder if Adam will leave and start his own business or throw himself into the workplace’s new youth culture? As long as he doesn’t dance to Run DMC like he did in season one to prove he’s still “hip” … I think that’d get him fired.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Jan 12, 2011 @ 11:46 EST5EDT