From Stella Dallas to Kramer vs. Kramer, there’s no tearjerker quite like the separation of parent and child, and Because Mommy Works (1994) is no exception. An NBC production that found a second home on Lifetime, it could more accurately be called Because Daddy’s a Dipsh*t. And while its plot and resolution are likely to astonish or even amuse younger or more sheltered viewers who don’t take it seriously, the ’90s were indeed still a time when mothers, unlike fathers, were legally penalized for working or attaining higher education.
Anne Archer plays Abby Forman, a cardiac care nurse and mother to six-year-old Willie (Casey Wurzbach of Gramps). Her ex-husband, Ted (John Heard, a specialist of sorts in detestable characters), has spent nearly half of Willie’s life largely absent from it, doing whatever he pleases, but believes he has fulfilled his fatherly obligations by never missing a child support payment. Now remarried to homemaker Claire (Ashley Crow, who makes the most of a small but complex role), he reappears to again hassle Abby for having the temerity to think that she, like him or any other working father, can effectively parent while also holding a job.
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