Motherland
Season 3 SABC3 (*193) 19:30 Drama
The parents’ group in British comedy series Motherland not only provides the moms with updates from their children’s school, but it also offers them support and a sense of belonging, especially for the ever-so frantic and disorganised Julia Johnston (Anna Maxwell Martin).
At a point, Julia’s life was all in order. She was a dedicated events planner with a successful career. Then her mother Marion (Ellie Haddington) refused to babysit Julia’s kids for free, leaving the events planner to juggle her demanding job and raising her kids as the primary parent because her husband Paul (Oliver Chris) is uninvolved – and he’d rather go out for drinks with his colleagues than help around the house. “Like most of the mothers in the show, Julia is stressed,” explains Anna, before adding that her character “goes out of her way to be a good mother and wife, but she constantly feels like a failure, which leads to her annoyance.”
The comedy series thrives in drawing humour from the trials and tribulations of motherhood. Apart from Julia’s struggles with finding a babysitter that she can trust or feeling ignored by her kids, season 3 explores the challenges that middle-class parents face such as Julia’s single-mom friend Liz (Diane Morgan), who has fewer resources to invest in her children’s education and less time to spend with them because she’s always working to make ends meet. “Parenting on TV usually features cutesy kids and parents who’re mildly frazzled and not furious like in Motherland. Seeing bad parenting makes people feel better about themselves,” says Diane.