10 Reasons Parenthood Should Be Renewed

So the latest statement from NBC on Parenthood's renewal is something like, "We'll just wait and see how it goes." This is incredibly frustrating for those of us who are fans of the show. NBC is notorious for making horrible decisions with TV (which is kind of what 30 Rock was really all about), but to me, they have a good thing going with Parenthood. Sure, the ratings aren't as big as they hope, but unless they have a Walking Dead up their sleeve or plan on bringing Matthew from Downton Abbey back from the dead in a spin-off (Romelle, I'm looking at you for a title), they should be content with the consistent viewership of the show. Word of advice to those of you who are wanting to bring it back, don't watch ANY OF THE NEW NBC SHOWS. If any of them rank higher than Parenthood, it could get the axe. So just don't do it. Move over to Fox or Bravo or even ABC, but don't give NBC a reason.

Here are 10 reasons NBC should bring Parenthood back:

Real men...massage...each...other?

1. Male Role Models-For years we have watched as helpless fathers on sit-coms plant themselves in front of the TV and declare ignorance at anything to do with housework, kids, or romance. They spout off their one-liners and everyone laughs, but we all know that the women are running the show. I happen to believe art imitates real life, but after so many decades of viewing this kind of interaction, it's hard to know what came first...the chicken or the egg. Adam, Joel, Zeke, and even Crosby are not the fathers of the 80's and 90's. They love their wives, work hard, are invested in the lives of their children, and are not afraid to show passion even if it brings tears. They are far from perfect, but they try, listen, and are active participants in their families rather than background comedic relief. More of this please.

Save the drama for your...oh wait...you are the mama.

2. Sarah's Redemption-Sarah is no Lorelai, that's for sure. Still you can't help but love her. At first it just seemed like she'd been dealt a raw deal. Divorced mom of 2 teens moving in with her parents to get her life together. But now we know that Sarah is one of "those people." You know the kind. There are 2 types of drama. The drama that just happens in life, and the kind we create for ourselves. Sarah creates her own drama. Dave Ramsey, financial guru, has a theory that if you have $1000 in savings, that things that would otherwise be emergencies (doctors visits, broken down cars, stopped up toilets, etc.) are not emergencies. Without that money in savings, you create more debt or cause a crisis in other areas of life (no grocery money, gas money, late bills, etc.) This is how I feel about Sarah emotionally. She has no healthy emotional reserve to dip from, and so she just spins from crisis to crisis making bad choices that lead to more bad choices. With the ridiculousness of her choosing Hank over Mark, she is wide open to really get her life in order this next season. It's a clean slate, and we want to see her make the most of it. There are no gay characters on Parenthood yet, and in staying true to her wandering spirit, I wouldn't be surprised if Sarah's next relationship is with a woman.

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.

3. Amber's Happiness -So, even though Sarah is a screw up, her daughter Amber has really come into her own lately. She's independent, smart, and savvy. Even though she was so in love with Ryan, she chose not to be caught up in his drama and was willing to part with him until he figured his shit out. Now that he's pushed past some of that, it's time for us to see her happy with him. I'd love for the next season to end with Ryan and Amber's wedding. I would ALSO like to see Amber pursue a degree in Child Development/Psychology. Her talent working with Max should not be a dropped storyline, but come back into play on a larger scale. Just because she didn't get into Berkeley doesn't mean SFSU wouldn't take her!

Wisdom lies here.

4. Camille Braverman, The Matriarch-Bonnie Bedelia brings grace and strength to every character she's ever played. Camille Braverman is no exception. She is a free spirit, but responsible, nurturing, but not controlling, and encouraging, but has high standards of behavior. This season with Kristina's breast cancer, we got to see the relationship between these two up close. At times it was awkward and hard not to feel bad for both of them as they sorted out the push and pull of helping, not wanting help, needing help, and finally receiving help. Camille, who is often the character with the least dialogue, communicated efficiently and emotionally and finally pierced through Kristina's outer shell to let her know that she is loved. I'd love to see more of these moments, and learn more about Camille. Just don't kill her off. I do worry that a death is coming if Parenthood stays on the air. You can only dance with cancer, car wrecks, and construction sites for so long.

5. Promoting Family-I am a single woman in my 30's with no kids. While I am pretty content in this life, watching the Braverman clan celebrate, mourn, and do life together is enough to make me want to start popping out kids right now. Lots of them! There are many shows that center around family, but few of them do it as well as this one. It never looks easy, but it always looks worth it. Isn't that how most of the best things in life flesh out? I also love that this is a liberal family who lives in Berkeley (a.k.a. Satan's lair), and still manages uphold a strong sense of family (Wait, I thought liberals were trying to destroy the family...). Even if they make decisions that you and your family wouldn't, at least they talk about their issues and deal with them. There is no perpetuation of pretend perfection happening here, which is what I find to be the thing that tears most families apart...no matter what side of the political spectrum they land on or where they live. All of this is really not what's important. What is important is that Parenthood has made family cool again. So many dramas focus on the work place or groups of friends, (or if you're Dallas, you focus on the horror of being related to horrible people) but Parenthood promotes family, even if it looks different than yours.

Victor's adoption process was one of my very favorite story lines.

6. Models of Parenting-I love that the show gives us not 1, not 2, but 5 different examples of how people parent. Add in the in-laws (like Jasmine's mother) and that number increases. When I worked in a job where people came to me to discuss things like parenting, I would often walk to my bookshelf and point to the books on raising kids. I usually pointed out a few of my favorites, but in the end, I pointed out that there are hundreds. If there were only one way to parent, there would be only one book on how to do it. But with changing economy, social pressures, and technology, to name a few, parents must take new aspects of life into consideration as they make decisions for their kids. I like that Parenthood showcases these different styles. Sarah wants to be friends with her kids. Jasmine and Crosby like to take time to explain things to Jabbar. Joel and Julia often end up in good cop/bad cop situations. Adam and Kristina choose their battles (and very few of them) with Max who has Asperger's. And then there's Zeke and Camille, who are kind of perfect when it comes to parenting their adult children. What I love is that the writers of the show aren't afraid to let these families bloom through the situations they've put them in, which allows for what seem like very real life consequences of spoiled brats, emotionally withdrawn teenagers, back talking, and at times, all hell breaking loose.

7. Realistic Siblings-If you are an only child, you may wanna skip this section. It might make you slightly depressed. I have a younger brother, Austin. Someone once told me that when I talk about him, I have a special tone of admiration in my voice reserved for just him. I adore him. But as I have watched him become a man, and he has watched me become a woman, the nature of our relationship has changed. Where we once centered all of our conversations around movies and television, playing pop-culture games, our relationship has matured with us. We have begun to formulate opinions about each others lives and actions. Some things that he does puzzle me, I am sure he feels the same way about my decisions. Yet, there is NO ONE on the PLANET that is more like me than he is. From the blood running through our veins to our mannerisms, no one can deny we are siblings, and our basic responses to most things are similar if not at times, identical. There is such a great comfort in this for me. Maybe the most fascinating thing that Parenthood has done is actually being able to create this kind of interaction between four unrelated actors. Zeke and Camille "birthed" these children who share different parts of their hippie spirit and ambition. Julia and Adam got the drive to succeed, Crosby and Sarah are the creative free spirits. Yet, when the four of them talk, they NAIL the dialogue and mannerisms of siblings. Their interaction is seamless. And aside from the way they interact (the best scenes are always the ones just between the 4 of them), their relationships are believable. Even though Adam and Sarah are different in most ways, he still goes to her for things because they are closer in age, not wanting to show Julia that he's less than perfect. Crosby adores and respects Adam, but needs and resents him at times. Julia and Sarah have very little in common personality wise, yet Sarah is so proud of Julia and all she's accomplished. These relationships are brilliantly written and acted, and hopefully they make people think about the treasure of having siblings. (Just for fun, did you know that Sarah and Adam date in real life?)

Amber's face is pretty much what I look like while listening to the music on Parenthood.

8.Music-As if Bob Dylan's Forever Young played through the opening of this show each week isn't enough to make you happy, the show is FULL of great music. Andrew Bird, The Avett Brothers, Neko Case, Leonard Cohen, Jack White, Fleetwood Mac, Iron and Wine, Missy Higgins...need I go on? All of these great artists and a ton more have had their songs showcased throughout episodes. In fact, you  might not realize it but each episode of Parenthood averages 5 songs. It used to be that Grey's Anatomy was the go-to show for up and coming artists and for us to find good music. They may have set the trend, but Parenthood has taken it and run with it. Hardly an episode goes by when I don't Shazam a song to see what it is. (Which brings me to this gem of a website: www.tunefinder.com They have EVERY song in EVERY episode of EVERY show you could possibly want to know about. Brilliant.) The thing I enjoy about the music of Parenthood is that it's not just new stuff, it's old stuff too, representative of the generations in the show. Aside from the music in the show, the show has a storyline revolving around music with the Luncheonette. I'd love to see them get to a place where they are bringing in more artists to perform. Bon Iver was on last season!

9. Perfect Dialogue-As a wannabe writer, I pay a lot of attention to language and how we communicate. I picked up pretty early on that Shonda Rhimes has a monologue in almost every episode of her shows where a character begins a speech with "You don't get to...." It didn't take me long to recognize the repetition and parallelism in the way she writes. Sit-coms have it easy because the goal is to deliver a joke, but trying to create natural conversation between characters while conveying the years of emotions built up from being related and have it hold up for 48 minutes each week and move the plot forward is difficult. But the writers of Parenthood are brilliant, and accompanied by actors who have really taken to their style. These "family" members talk over each other and like each other in a way that I've never seen on TV before. No character is exempt from these traits. There is so much truth to the fact that we begin to talk and develop similar mannerisms as the people we spend time around, and Parenthood impresses me each and every week with the interactions between characters.

"..and dear God, let me keep my job so I can buy a cute baby sloth for my beautiful wife."

10. What's Your Other Option?-Listen up NBC...if you cancel Parenthood, what are you going to replace it with? Another crime drama? Another medical show? Another sit-com that you keep threatening to cancel? Or maybe, God forbid, another "reality" show. The worst thing about NBC, is that they don't recognize a good thing when they have it. From Ann Curry to Dan Harmon, to any sit-com that never got past the first three episodes because it didn't bring in millions of viewers, NBC execs have their fingers on the trigger making watching TV there almost like eating at a buffet. From week to week they may not have the prime rib or pot roast that you love, but at least they have fried chicken, and by that I mean, SNL, so you keep coming back. Tina Fey isn't set to write TV again for a few years, and so I doubt there's anything that NBC could offer in the place of Parenthood that would cause me to watch. Come on NBC...make us proud....

Here's hoping Parenthood gets renewed!

What reasons do you have for wanting to see it come back?