How did the Brady family afford Alice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The real question is how did they have that big house with maids quarters, yet only 3 bedrooms upstairs.

Why does an architect have three bedromm with six kids?

But the elevations were to die for. (I dated an architect -- these are not the most practical people.)

[Anonymous]

OMG -- I read this in one fell swoop while waiting for my daughter to get out of lax practice. It has haunted me ever since. Let's discuss. (But no whining about Jan from middle kids.)

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/09/heres-the-story

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up watching the episodes on Nick at Nite. I still remember my dad telling me you didn't get to see one episode back to back, everyday like they played them. It blew my mind!

I also loved watching Leave it to Beaver. A few years back, I caught an episode and good grief is that show full of racist comments!

Oh, honey, you just made me feel so old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

first poster here--I know the maid's quarters were downstairs. My point was that they ONLY has 3 bedrooms in such a huge house. How does one have room for maids quarters, but only 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom for 6 kids?

Actually I knew a lot of real actual (not sitcom) families during the Brady Bunch era where the kids shared bedrooms and bathrooms. In fact, in most families I knew, everybody used the same bathroom, including the parents. Though these families did not have live-in housekeepers who wore uniforms.

Yeah, I'm wondering how young all the posters marvelling at the kids sharing rooms and bathrooms are. My dad designed and built our house, and we had 8 kids in 4 bedrooms, and all shared one bathroom. (My parents did have their own, but it had to be a MAJOR emergency for us to be able to use theirs! There was a half-bath downstairs for regular emergencies --- or you just barged in on your siblings and told them to hurry the hell up.).

We did not have a maid, nor did anyone I knew. But I think that live-in help was just a lot cheaper because there weren't that many work options for women. Alice would have been born in the 1920's or so, right? So if she did not become a teacher or go to secretarial school, and didn't get married.....her options were pretty limited. Room, board, some spending money, and an employer that wasn't a total a-hole were probably enough to keep her. I'm seeing a great TV special with Alice's back story:

Alice dropped out of school early to work in the factories during WWII. She fell in love with the boy next door, who then went off to the Korean War to fight and die (M.A.S.H. tie-in). Alice always stayed close to her true love's family, particularly his little brother Mike, who she always treated like her own little brother. After Mike's wife (Roberta) had Peter, her health suffered due to problems with a difficult delivery. Alice was sick of factory work (particularly he sexist idiot of a boss--Laverne and Shirly tie-in), She saw Mike and Roberta were struggling --- they all agreed Alice would move in and help Roberta with the new baby and little Greg. Sadly, because adequate birth control wasn't available in many states in the '60s, Roberta got pregnant again and did not survive childbirth when Bobby was born. And that's the story, till the one day that that lady met this fellow....

Please, please write your novel. I've begged you to do this before. I'm still waiting.

[Anonymous]

Its simple - Alice got free rent and a small stipend from Mike / Carol. Sam most likely was giving away his meat in more than one way to help feed the 6 and satisfy Alice so she didn't demand more $.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did Carol and the girls move into Mike's house? If so, then originally three kids were sharing two bedrooms, which isn't so bad.

Yes.
so that explains the three bedrooms and why one of the bedrooms was large enough to comfortably fit 3 beds.

One thing that always baffled me - the kids had one or two toys. But no toy boxes, no toy shelves, no toys in the living room or tv room

Kids had fewer toys back then (and only Bobby and Cynthia were really toybox age). When my DS was little (early 90s) I read that the average number of toys a child had had gone from 10 in 1957 to 100.

[Anonymous]

Alice was probably living there for free. My friend in high school came from an immigrant family and they had a nanny like this. They brought her from their country and she worked as their nanny and lived and ate for free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Alice was probably living there for free. My friend in high school came from an immigrant family and they had a nanny like this. They brought her from their country and she worked as their nanny and lived and ate for free.

Agree. It was probably slightly outdated for that time, still, but a single somewhat older woman might have wanted to live in that situation. Se security of living in a house, rather than a lonely *gasp* apartment or with roommates. Built in job. Some freedom and privacy.

[Anonymous]

It was unusual to have a live in housekeeper by the 1970s if you were only upper middle class. It did happen but it was not common. You have to go back to the 1950s, and especially before WWII before live-ins were common. Even in the 1970s Mr. Brady would have to be a very, very, very successful architect to afford a full time housekeeper while still supporting a large family. More common would be a weekly cleaner.

Most of the "Alices" of the 1970s would have been AAs, or maybe Latino in California/Texas. Their white versions wouldn't have had much difficulty finding basic office jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How did everybody on Friends afford those apartments?

Chandler says in the series finale "thanks for rent control"

[Anonymous]

Did both Carol and Mike's first spouses die?

[Anonymous]

They were able to live in that house because they did it. The kids shared bedrooms and were close and loving and it was a good way to learn how to share and respect privacy. All the handwringing here about children sharing a room is DCUM striver angst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Carol was divorced. Must have been the insurance policy of Mikes dead wife.

Mike's murdered dead wife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was unusual to have a live in housekeeper by the 1970s if you were only upper middle class. It did happen but it was not common. You have to go back to the 1950s, and especially before WWII before live-ins were common. Even in the 1970s Mr. Brady would have to be a very, very, very successful architect to afford a full time housekeeper while still supporting a large family. More common would be a weekly cleaner.

Most of the "Alices" of the 1970s would have been AAs, or maybe Latino in California/Texas. Their white versions wouldn't have had much difficulty finding basic office jobs.

Alice predates Mrs. Brady. He needed a live in housekeeper/au pair for his three boys so he could work. There was probably a life insurance policy on his wife- maybe he was able to pay off his mortgage and use the money for her salary. He did design large corporate buildings- so he should have been a very highly paid architect.

[Anonymous]

penguinsix wrote:In the Very Brady Sequel movie it was revealed that Carol Brady's husband was a college professor who went on a 'three hour tour' off of Hawaii and was never heard from again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Professor_(Gilligan's_Island)

I think that her husband came back in a later Brady movie - lost somewhere doing an archaeological dig? But it may have been an impostor for her husband who really just wanted to steal the horse sculpture which was really worth millions.