Julie and Barbara were lucky. They had wonderful parents. Ann was right. Even if they had to have them separately, Julie and Barbara had it pretty good. Ed was awesome. It would be super to have him as your father! You can tell how much he loves his girls, and he would be so fun to spend time with as your father. Ann was a good mother. She kept the girls grounded in what was important and also gave them unconditional love. She could be blunt and did put the cards on the table sometimes, but it was all for their own good. Ann and Ed both gave their daughters unconditional love. No matter what, they would never have turned their back on them no matter what the girls did.

I am proud that Ann set the girls straight when they were mad at Ed for marrying Vicki. They did indeed have a damn good father. Sometimes Ann could be immature, but she really shined in that scene. This is how it should be when couples get divorced. I am a family law attorney, and I handle lots of divorces. Like David, LOL. I have seen so much crap. Parents use the kids against each other and bad-mouth each other. This show does a good job of depicting how it *should* be done because it's never the kids' fault, and *both* parents are very important in their kids' lives and shouldn't be competing with each other anyway.

Julie and Barbara were lucky. They had wonderful parents. Ann was right. Even if they had to have them separately, Julie and Barbara had it pretty good. Ed was awesome. It would be super to have him as your father! You can tell how much he loves his girls, and he would be so fun to spend time with as your father. Ann was a good mother. She kept the girls grounded in what was important and also gave them unconditional love. She could be blunt and did put the cards on the table sometimes, but it was all for their own good. Ann and Ed both gave their daughters unconditional love. No matter what, they would never have turned their back on them no matter what the girls did.
I am proud that Ann set the girls straight when they were mad at Ed for marrying Vicki. They did indeed have a damn good father. Sometimes Ann could be immature, but she really shined in that scene. This is how it should be when couples get divorced. I am a family law attorney, and I handle lots of divorces. Like David, LOL. I have seen so much crap. Parents use the kids against each other and bad-mouth each other. This show does a good job of depicting how it *should* be done because it's never the kids' fault, and *both* parents are very important in their kids' lives and shouldn't be competing with each other anyway.

I disagree with you. Ann was the only good parent in that relationship because she stayed while that jerk left and started doing God knows what.

Ed was a caring and loving father but he was not there for the big moments for those girls and that is what is takes to be called a wonderful parent.

You have it wrong, Ed was a decent parent but Ann was the wonderful parent because she took on the jobs as both mother and father and did a damn good job

Okay, now I must take Ed on as my client and advocate for him, LOL. After the divorce, Ann was the custodial parent. Ed had visitation only. I don't know what their divorce decree said about parenting decisions, but in most cases the custodial parent makes all the "big" decisions. There is such a thing as shared parenting, but that is relatively new. We must remember that this was the 1970s. Mothers usually got custody unless there was a good reason for them not to. Remember the movie "Kramer v. Kramer"?

Ed only had visitation. Equally important is the fact of Julie and Barbara's ages. Older children usually have more school activities, dates, etc. which makes visitation harder to exercise. Certainly Ed could have enforced his court-ordered visitation, but he would have respected the fact that his daughters wanted to go to a football game or out on a date or something maybe rather than coming and seeing him on a particular weekend.

Ann and Ed had a talk about him not being there, remember in the episode where Ed wants to buy the girls a new car? Ann complains about Ed not being around at some of the "big" times, and Ed counters by saying that Ann was the one who made that decision. Ann agrees. Ann moved the girls away from their hometown and away from Ed. Why would Ed have picked up and moved to Indianapolis from Logansport when he already had a good job, etc. there? It is about 80 miles from Logansport to Indianapolis so it's not the easiest thing to make that drive all the time for either party.

Julie and Barbara knew they had a father who was there for them when they needed him. Let's face it. No divorce is ever easy, and the non-custodial parent can get left out in the cold sometimes through no fault of their own. Ed was actually between a rock and a hard place because if he had fought Ann for custody of the kids, he would have been classified a jerk. People would have said that he's trying to take her kids from her, even though that's what she did to him. Those prejudices still remain today against fathers who fight for custody, unless the mother is a bad actor. Ed did the only thing he could do. Plus, Julie and Barbara chose to live with Ann.

I never said that either Ed nor Ann were perfect. They certainly were not. Great parents doesn't equal perfect parents. We see Ed's failings in the child support episode, and Julie and Barbara had to realize that their father was a human being and not 17 feet tall. I stand by my original post and reiterate that both Ann and Ed were great parents. Lots of kids would kill to have parents like that.

JulietX is another poster we need back here. Nicely taking down my pal Josh.

I agree, she made some great points.

Come back Julie!