Ward's Advice

[Scrabjan1]

In many episodes the boys are always afraid to go to Ward and tell them they're in trouble. Yet Ward consistently tells them to come to him with their troubles but they never do. It's like they aren't listening. Beaver's Skates and The Younger Brother are two episodes when Beaver could have just told Ward what's going on, also Ward's Golf Clubs. This is why a lot of the episodes have the same plot. Also earlier, Beaver is kicked out of band and is embarrassed to tell his parents. You would think they would have learned from past times to just fess up. Imagine how good it would have been for Beaver to just say I was using your golf club and it broke.

I guess the title tells it all, leave it to Beaver to get in trouble and not tell anyone.

[Tankeryanker]

I think that this is done to show human nature and family dynamics.

Parents teach children how to lie. Parents make children afraid to come to them.

When we are little and scrape our knee, we easily run to our parents for help and soothing. Normally there are no repercussions from scraping our knee unless we scraped it doing something we know we should not be doing. Humans don't like being punished or making others feel like they need to punish.

If a parent only rescues the child through childhood, the stupid behavior tends to escalate as the child ages. Not a cool situation.

That will be 25 cents, please....

[Retro4Life]

Originally Posted by Scrabjan1

In many episodes the boys are always afraid to go to Ward and tell them they're in trouble. Yet Ward consistently tells them to come to him with their troubles but they never do. It's like they aren't listening. Beaver's Skates and The Younger Brother are two episodes when Beaver could have just told Ward what's going on, also Ward's Golf Clubs. This is why a lot of the episodes have the same plot. Also earlier, Beaver is kicked out of band and is embarrassed to tell his parents. You would think they would have learned from past times to just fess up. Imagine how good it would have been for Beaver to just say I was using your golf club and it broke.

I guess the title tells it all, leave it to Beaver to get in trouble and not tell anyone.

You're looking at this through the prism of adulthood. Kids don't always behave logically, and they don't always learn their lessons quickly. It makes sense to me that Beaver behaves in a manner that doesn't make sense; that's what being a kid is like.

Beaver was always very afraid of angering or disappointing his dad. While I'm sure the lure to tell Ward everything was there, every time, it usually got trumped by his fear of those two reactions.

[Tankeryanker]

Mea culpa

[Torgo]

If Beaver went to his father right away with his problems, the episodes would be under 10 minutes long.

[Scrabjan1]

Correct. That's the plot of most of the episodes. Someone has a problem and tries to fix it without parental intervention. Imagine if Ward came home with a problem of his own for a change. I think the only episode where Ward has a real problem is Ward's Problem when he promises to take Wally fishing and finds out he has to take Beaver to the picnic.

[stevea]

Really, they both have a little fear and a little awe of Ward. Not quite respect. They call him "sir" because he wants it, not out of respect.

So they'd do almost anything to hide their wrongdoings from him. Time and again. And as was said, if they didn't, we'd only be to 10 minutes.

[Scrabjan1]

I still think the suit was intimidating!! He always wore a suit in Season 5 and 6.

[Scrabjan1]

I thought the same thing. It could be anything. With all the commercials for sexual dysfunction it could be that. We are inundated with drug commercials.