Mary Richards: Patron Saint of Single Girls

The best Saturday evenings of my life were spent with Mary Richards. From the age of about 8 though about 15 this was the pattern: my sister and I took the obligatory Saturday evening bath (cleanliness was most important on Sundays) and then settled down for an evening of TV. If we were early enough we could start with Lawrence Welk and if we were good enough we could last through Carol Burnette. But the best was the Mary Tyler Moore Show. The theme song was great, the font was groovy, the house was gorgeous, the cast was perfect, the writing was great. The best part, however, was the invitation to imagine myself as a single girl with a studio apartment and an interesting job in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I longed for a life of independence, with loyal friends, and no need for male approval. The bay window was also very appealing. I was so young I didn’t even aspire to Mary's figure.

The funny thing was that the show seemed to respect Mary’s privacy. Once she came home from a party in the morning. No explanation for her mother (Nanette Fabray, a genius of casting) or for us. What did she do in her closet? We never saw. Did her heart ever break? No idea. This all became clear to me only years later when I was a single girl with an interesting job. As an adolescent it all looked so uncomplicated.

Mary Richards, the Patron Saint of Single Girls, never despaired, never settled, and that was the last we heard of her. I noted during the last season of the show that she seemed headed for a fulfilled life with the former Donald Hollinger (of “That Girl!”) but we don’t know how it turned out. A few years after my MTM fixation, I started reading Jane Austin. Those stories also transported me, but I was frustrated that Lizzy’s married life was beyond my knowledge.

Women are suitable protaganists for familiar stories when they are searching for love. I'm not knocking that process as a narrative subject. The Mary Tyler Moore show is tops in television and Jane Austin's books are tops in novels. But what stories do we tell about mothers? Our patron saint is also a Mary, I guess, but she never did much to drive a story line.

Which brings me to Harry Potter. . .