Parenting in The Cosby Show and The George Lopez Show

When looking at the shows The Cosby Show and George Lopez, the display family values, parental authority and other subjects regarding statuses and ranks.  

In the show, George Lopez, the household consists of George (the father), Angie (the mother), Carmen (the daughter), Max (the son), and at a certain point Carmen’s boyfriend, Jason. The Lopez’s  are a mmiddle-classLatino family. Both parents, George and Angie, are both the employed but Max and Carmen are not. At a certain point in the series, George loses his job and looked to Angie to support and provide for the family, which was an example of sexual stratification. 

The show presents parental authority in, basically, all of its episodes. In an episode where Carmen wants to drop out of school due to a group of girls bullying her at school, George quickly turns it down. The situation when Carmen tried to fool George and Angie into believing she was pregnant, Angie quickly made her tell the truth. When looking at the parent’s parenting technique it seems as if they were a “piggy-backing” off of each other. When one parent decides something, they look for the other to back them up and give support to the decision. At one moment their parental authority was challenged (in my opinion) after George’s mother stepped in and slapped Max when he disrespected her. 

Education plays a role in the show, also, especially with George and Max. As a child George was dyslexic and that caused problems for him in school. They find out that Max was starting the struggle harder and harder in school and they did not know why. It turned out that Max, like his father, was suffering from dyslexia but it was far worse than George’s. His learning disabilities almost made him fail the fifth grade. Carmen was seen as someone would not make it in school, either. George, himself, actually thought Carmen would not make it and be a “lost cause” due to her career choice as being poet and not going the college. After all of that, she went to college. 

The Cosby Show consisted of Cliff (the father), Clair (the mother), Sondra (the daughter), Denise (the daughter), Theo (the son), Vanessa (the daughter), and Ruby (the daughter). The Huxtable’s are a high class African American family. When it comes to jobs, Cliff is an OB/GYN practice. Clair is a successful business woman and lawyer. As far as the children are concerned I do not think any of them worked. 

Education plays a major role in the show. The Grandfather, Cliff and Clair successfully, attended Hillman College. Sondra attended and graduated from Princeton University, with intentions of being a lawyer. Denise attended Hillman College, like her grandfather, mother, and father. Theo, like Max and George, suffered from dyslexia, which slowed him down in school. Although, Theo had dyslexia, it did not stop him from success. Theo was able to attend and graduate from New York University with a degree in psychology. Vanessa enrolled and attended Lincoln University. As you can see, within this large family everyone has been successful in education. 

When it comes to parental authority Cliff and Clair used a technique I would like to call “tag teaming”. Whenever one parent got done with the child the other jumped in. For example, when Denise shot off at Cliff and Clair about buying her own car, Cliff and Clair “jumped” in and out of reasoning with Denise on the responsibilities of cars. 

The kind of house hold I would want to have would be similar to the Huxtables.  Though, I do not want a large family like Cliff but I will take the amount of success that lives within that family. I would like to have strong house hold where the religion is strong and powerful. I already know that if the parental authority is not two sided, there will at least be one parent that shows authority over the children.