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Post by wenonah4th on Sept 25, 2013 10:32:49 GMT -5
It might really be pushing it to have same-sex parents in a children's series like that. (sorry, Virgo, I know what you're thinking...)
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Post by CharlotteTJohanssen on Sept 25, 2013 11:37:57 GMT -5
I wonder if Stoneybrook were created today if the families would be the same (as in the typical nuclear family). Maybe more of "Jamie's parents are Adam and Steve" or "Charlotte lives with her Grandparents" or "Jessi has single mother". I could see it actually at least by today's standards instead of back in the late 80s/ early 90s. I could see more of a lesbian couple for some reason. Probably because I'm a FRIENDS fan. Susan and Caroll are great reaccuring characters. |
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celaeno
Sitting For The Papadakis's
I have to share a room with Vanessa
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Post by celaeno on Sept 25, 2013 13:20:02 GMT -5
I don't know whether the books would include non-traditional families if they were published today; probably because I haven't read any BSC-type books that have been published in recent years. Has anyone else read any, and if so, are you seeing those types of characters and families? Anyone who's read Ann's Main Street series?
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Post by greer on Sept 25, 2013 18:04:02 GMT -5
It might really be pushing it to have same-sex parents in a children's series like that. (sorry, Virgo, I know what you're thinking...) Or perhaps not... Things have progressed a lot, and Main Street had a lesbian couple. |
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Post by virgoscorpio on Sept 25, 2013 19:25:43 GMT -5
^ Who was the lesbian couple in Main Street? I don't remember!
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supprazz
Sitting For The Newtons
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Post by supprazz on Sept 25, 2013 19:38:11 GMT -5
Maybe there would have been a lesbian couple, but it wouldn't have been said out loud back then.
I'm pretty sure that in the Friends Forever book where Sunny and Dawn visited, in the seen where they all went to New York, they saw a man wearing a bridal dress on the street.
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valuemeal2
Sitter-In-Training
California Girl!
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Post by valuemeal2 on Sept 26, 2013 4:26:13 GMT -5
I grew up in a decent-sized (120,000) suburb of a large city (1 million people) and all my same-age cousins (all, like, three of them) lived really far away. I had some older cousins who babysat for me who lived closer. We did have a random pair of kids in the same grade who had the same last name who were actually cousins every once in a while, but for the most part, nobody knew anybody else. I'm estimating the population of Stoneybrook to be about 30,000 (similar to Princeton, since that's where it's based on, right?) so it might be a little different there, but I never thought it was weird that nobody was related. Seems perfectly logical to me.
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Post by greer on Sept 26, 2013 10:56:07 GMT -5
^ Who was the lesbian couple in Main Street? I don't remember! I think they owned one of the businesses. |
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Post by virgoscorpio on Sept 26, 2013 17:12:10 GMT -5
^ Oh, okay. So it was very covert.
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cnj
Sitting For The Papadakis's
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Post by cnj on Aug 29, 2018 7:43:56 GMT -5
So, I grew up in a really small town... everyone is related. Not like, EVERYONE... But most people have their immediate family, cousins and whatnot in the town too. It always baffled me how no one in Stoneybrook seemed to have cousins, or cousins were such an unheard of thing... Like when Karen doesn't meet her cousins til she's SEVEN? Really? My cousin is my best friend! Did anyone else find it weird how no one in the books was related? I think it would have been hilarious to have, say, Alan Gray and Alexander Kurtzman cousins  Or Heather and Shira Epstein... why not make them sisters? Because Stoneybrook is not one of those tiny, one-horse towns. Also, not everyone stays stagnant in a large, northeastern town like Stoneybrook...about sixty to seventy-five of all Stoneybrook residents were not born there. Also, most of the kids that grew up in Stoneybrook during the series don't live there today...even the BSC is now scattered in different states. |
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cnj
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Post by cnj on Aug 29, 2018 7:48:06 GMT -5
^ Who was the lesbian couple in Main Street? I don't remember! There were actually quite a few and today are quite a few lesbian and gay couples, lots of them with children living in Stoneybrook. Stoneybrook is an open, very progressive, especially today, large town less than an hour from NYC. |
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cnj
Sitting For The Papadakis's
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Post by cnj on Aug 29, 2018 7:50:42 GMT -5
It might really be pushing it to have same-sex parents in a children's series like that. (sorry, Virgo, I know what you're thinking...) Not really. Lesbians and gays are a fact of life... NOT some 'dirty' secret that 'must be hidden' from children. There are now lots of books for young children featuring gays and lesbians. |
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cnj
Sitting For The Papadakis's
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Post by cnj on Aug 29, 2018 7:56:39 GMT -5
I wonder if Stoneybrook were created today if the families would be the same (as in the typical nuclear family). Maybe more of "Jamie's parents are Adam and Steve" or "Charlotte lives with her Grandparents" or "Jessi has single mother". Even back in the 1990s, Stoneybrook had lots of non-traditional families. Lots of Stoneybrook kids were part of stepfamilies and blended families and lots of kids, including Stacey, Abby and Anna belonged to single-mum homes. I am sure an open, progressive place like Stoneybrook had families with gay parents and yes, some kids who lived with grandparents or an aunt. Not every Stoneybrook family was the traditional, heterosexual nuclear family...the BSC books were NOT any throwback to the 1950s. |
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Post by Sideshowjazz1 on Nov 16, 2018 21:04:03 GMT -5
I remember a lot of characters who point out stereotypes. In the second book Logan narrates, the girls discover that the bully the kids were afraid of was a girl, whereas beforehand they assumed it was a boy. They also mention Dr Johanssen and how most people assume when hearing the name, that she is male. Logan himself was also an effort to keep gender stereotypes out of the story, which is pointed out when in #56, Mrs Lowell wouldn't want Logan as a sitter because "Boys don't baby-sit". Then again, that book was trying to push all the stereotypes - big family? Catholic. Asian? Weird eyes. African-American? Black skin. Blended family? Unfaithful. Of course, having these stereotypes is portrayed negatively. That's one of the best things about the BSC in a moral sense.
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cnj
Sitting For The Papadakis's
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Post by cnj on Jan 2, 2019 17:35:42 GMT -5
I'm estimating the population of Stoneybrook to be about 30,000 (similar to Princeton, since that's where it's based on, right?) so it might be a little different there, but I never thought it was weird that nobody was related. Seems perfectly logical to me. I always thought of Stoneybrook's population as being more around 70,000 to 80,000...and since the 1990s, has grown to over 100,000. |
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Or Heather and Shira Epstein... why not make them sisters? 
