Bedroom
MeTV plays reruns from what I consider to be the golden age of Tv (60s - 80s). Most people have heard of The Brady Bunch, but if you haven’t, let me give you a sketch outline. A widower architect with 3 boys and a housekeeper, falls in love with a widow with 3 girls. They get married and he designs and builds their dream house from the late 60s for them all to reside. The series followed traditional comedy lines of boys and girls’ conflicts in what has been described (not by me) as a squeaky-clean family as they grow up. For example, in one episode, one of the kids refers to another kid as a “stinker” and Mrs. Brady chastises the kid that they don’t use that kind of language.
The setup assumed the 3 boys shared a bedroom and the 3 girls shared a bedroom with a shared bathroom between them. A trivia observation that has been written about extensively is that the shared bathroom set didn’t have a toilet in it. Other sets decorated at the height of 60s styles included a family room (where 1 of 2 phones resided), kitchen, dining room, Mike’s architecture den/office and, probably most famous, the stairs going up from the dining room to the upstairs bedroom where the family picture was set.
As the series went on, the kids started growing up (actors and their characters). The episode I saw today was Greg, the oldest boy, lamenting that he was a freshman in High School and needed some privacy from his siblings. Mike and Carol (Dad and Mom) sympathetically listened to Greg’s argument and started considering their options - convert the family room, the attic, Mike’s den/office. Each having their downsides. The first observation was the ease in acceptance of a 14- or 15-year old’s passionate plea for a change.
The episode goes on with Mike giving up his den/office as their first attempt with a side story about Greg thinking that needed more “groovy” clothes as an emerging man. The series developed with a refurnished attic that allowed a bedroom that the oldest daughter, Marsha, was eyeing to take when Greg went away to college (which logically seemed weird because I believe they were in the same class in school suggesting they’d be leaving for college at the same time).
At the end, Mike was sitting at his architectural drafting table as he redesigned the house with 8 bedrooms (one for each kid, a room for the housekeeper and a shared bedroom for Mike and Carol).
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” - John 14:1-7 ESV
“Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh and will say to him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me. And the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of livestock, and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.’ When Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘What is your occupation?’ you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.” - Genesis 46:31-34
The interesting social aspect of the Brady Bunch episode was that Mike and Carol listened to Greg’s desire for his own bedroom with all seriousness and desire to find a way to make it happen. We, as a group of humans, understand the need for our own space and this fits well within Biblical references. Praise God that he knows us better than we know ourselves.
