Workin’ Moms: Go To The Magic
Kate: I really need your guidance here.
Dad: No, you don’t.
Kate: Yes, I do. I do.
Dad: Just do what you’ve always done.
Kate: Which is what?
Dad: What I’ve always told you to do. Go to the magic.
Kate: I don’t—that doesn’t—that doesn’t mean anything. Why are ghosts so cryptic?
Dad: You know, Katie, this ride isn't worth much unless you can trust yourself to know where the magic is.
The final season of Workin’ Moms, a comedy about mothers in the workplace created by Catherine Reitman, aired on Netflix this past April. The show follows four moms: public relations executive Kate (played by Catherine Reitman); psychiatrist Anne, who is Kate’s best friend; book publisher Sloane; and IT specialist but recently unemployed Jenny. I wrote about the first season and my experience becoming a mother in my blog post Workin’ Moms. When it was announced that the show's upcoming seventh season would be the series finale, it was hard to believe that one of my favorite shows was ending. How was it possible that we’d already received six seasons of this hilarious and honest show? I couldn’t believe how quickly it went. It was also hard to accept that I’d have to let go of this incredible show whose characters felt like friends in this wild journey through motherhood, balancing work and relationships. Even if you’re not a parent, the messages in the final season are relatable to everyone.
Letting go is one of the lessons Anne learns with her now 16-year-old daughter Alice who we’ve seen grow up on the show. Their relationship was always the funniest because Anne is a tough person, and consequently, so is the daughter she raised. Last season Sloane tells the women she doesn’t think she has what it takes to be a mother. Anne disagrees and tells her, “The one thing I know about difficult people is that we make great moms. Headstrong, opinionated, asshole women make headstrong, opinionated, asshole kids. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s the one reason I know that Alice is gonna be okay in this world.” Anne is the sole mother in the group with a teenage daughter. She’s coming to the end of her parenting journey, where she no longer makes decisions for her daughter and must accept that Alice chooses what she wants her life to be. It’s bittersweet realizing that one day your kid’s not going to need you as much as they once did. Watching Anne mourn the loss of her baby girl, now a young woman ready to face the world, put things in perspective for me. I think raising a kid is hard because you have to do so much for them, but it looks even harder letting them go to do things on their own. It’s funny how hard we work as parents to make our children as independent as possible, but when the day comes for them to leave, we wish we had one more day with them. Anne eventually comes around and even supports her daughter’s wish to take a gap year and travel to Australia. It’s a lot of freedom to give a 16-year-old and displays the cultural differences between our countries.
Workin’ Moms is a Canadian show, so I find the characters’ approach to parenting, particularly around the subject of sex, shocking and refreshing. I watched the final season’s seventh episode, “It’s All Gone,” in awe. It plays off The Hangover as the moms work to piece together the previous night's events, where they had been celebrating Alice at her coming-of-age party. The party has nothing to do with her age and everything to do with Anne wanting to welcome her daughter to womanhood, AKA losing her virginity. I was amazed at how Anne treated this moment in her daughter’s life. She wants to honor Alice’s first time, not shame her. She’s actually apologetic towards Alice for walking in on what she thinks is her daughter’s first time. In hilarious fashion, Anne learns she missed that train; Alice lost her virginity a long time ago. Even though Anne doesn’t handle that information well, I was happy to see a healthy representation of what a parent-child relationship should look like surrounding sex. It was definitely not my experience. I was raised super Catholic, so sex wasn’t openly discussed, much less accepted or normalized—sex was reserved for marriage, no ifs ands or buts about it. I was also taken aback by Kate unabashedly encouraging her teenage stepson to masturbate when he decides to go celibate for a year. My religion had taught me how wrong that self-stimulating act was, so I appreciated all the healthy sex talk on my screen. I mean, this is the same show that depicted a woman’s honest and relatable decision to have an abortion in its first season. My husband pointed out another Canadian show, Degrassi, which I loved watching with my sister, that was also really open with the topics they showed on TV. Must be something about Canada.
I loved the last episode ending the series because it was so touching and really hit home to me. Reitman had said she wrote the finale as a love letter to her dad, iconic director Ivan Reitman behind such classics as Ghostbusters, who passed away two months before the last season began filming. Her character’s father passed away early on in the show, so it’s even more meaningful to have Dan Aykroyd, a ghostbuster, return as her dad's ghost. For this final season, we get flashbacks of the four main mommies as children with one of their parents. These memories help us better understand why the characters are who they are. Kate’s flashback with her father opens the last episode and sets up a significant career decision she must make. Throughout the series, we’ve seen these working women have to juggle their professional lives with their personal lives making for some pretty comedic situations. We’ve followed Kate as she creates her own PR firm, even having to bring her sick children to work one day. I’ve loved watching her choose herself over and over by following her ambitions while still being a mother. Taking her kids to work doesn’t turn out well, reminding us we can’t do it all and have it all at once. Even so, it’s important not to lose yourself and go after your passion.
The profound advice Kate receives from her dad is the same message I got from my dad: Go to the magic. Never settle for anything less than magic. Dream big, do what you love, and believe in yourself. Holding on to your inner child is essential because it’s easy to lose yourself and your vision as you get older. That’s the decision Kate must make. Does she work for a lucrative company that can pay her and her staff a salary she could never match, or does she bet on herself and go back to owning her own company? Going to the magic means staying true to herself, so she chooses to re-open her PR firm the same way Catherine Reitman chose to invest in herself by creating this show using her real experiences as a working mother. We’d seen her pop up in bit parts in comedic movies, but not until her own show did we see her full potential. She and her character’s decision is a lesson we can all learn from. Often we think we don’t know the answers to what we want, but it’s really that we’re afraid to follow that little voice in the back of our head telling us what we want. I love that Workin’ Moms reminds us that you have to know who you are without kids. Being a parent is so demanding but also very rewarding. You have to sacrifice a lot of yourself to be a good parent. That’s not a complaint; it’s part of the job. I admire that these characters, who are in the fortunate position to follow their passion, can have the best of both worlds.
Midway through the season, they bring back the Mommy and Me group, where a sobbing Sloane asks the ladies if motherhood will always be hard. Without skipping a beat, Kate and Anne tell her it will always be hard. Cut to Kate asking Anne, “Why did we do it, you think?” These are the honest and funny moments that I’ll miss the most about this show. With its storylines, Reitman created an unfiltered female-focused show where our struggles and successes are the central plots. The last scene of the series hilariously and succinctly wraps up the premise of Workin’ Moms. As Kate makes her way out the door to work, her two young children ask her if she can make them “Frosted Flakes French toast” and pancakes. With a cheerful smile, she says no and heads to work. As parents, we do everything for our children mostly because we have to when they’re younger but also because we love them and want to. But we can’t forget to give to ourselves too so we don’t lose our identity. It’s empowering to say no, even when it’s your adorable kid asking you for something. Give yourself permission to say yes to your wants and needs. That’s where the magic is.