Punky Brewster's Mom?
Did Punky ever find her Mom?
Because you stalked my whole life on the boardwalk!
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MovieChat Forums > Punky Brewster (1984) Discussion > Punky Brewster's Mom?
No.
It would have taken the show in a different direction for sure if Punky had. That would have been weird!! The premise was that she was dropped off at a mall and abandoned by her mom, end of story. Maybe they could have told Punky that they found her mom and Punky had to decide if she wanted to meet her or not.
I just assumed even as child that she was mentally ill. I did not know ins and outs of mental health as kid, but it was obvious that people did not get help they needed.
sharenah, her mom was just a deadbeat, or just couldn't take care of her anymore. confronting her mother would have made a powerful series finale though
shareDo you have any idea what she went through?
Making up stories just to get through the day... this isn't your garden variety DBM here. This is PBM!
(The Dead Beat Mum still be Punky Brewster's Mum)
"Yeah, go to the mall, buy that car battery and let the installer mess up your car. Good thinking, squirt."
That show was during 80's when Reagan...etc were cutting social services for mentally ill/low income. The idea had previously been that if 'community based care' existed, people were going to be just dandy.
Having spouse leave you with kid--and possibly no income no way to find them (this is pre-internet). So she's all alone and overwhelmed without resources in community.
Yes Punky survives...but again the show just kinda (for the sake of era) glosses over her mom abandoning her. She's old enough to remember this. I'd be traumatized. They'd do more with it today like have her doing counseling as part of that adoption. She was living by herself w/out medical care.....and supposedly no plumbing...
There was also On The Right Track (1981) in which Gary Coleman played a child who lived in a locker at Union Station.
This was during the Reagan years as well.
Yes, Punky's mom was all alone. She was all alone without her kid. She left her kid. What choice did she have? She needed to survive and, with federal cuts, she needed take care of herself and pray for someone else to take care of her kid. A better life was all she wanted.
She didn't even have a cellphone. Still, she did what she had to do as a mother anyway.
"Put those chicken bones under the the lazy susan. Later on I'll tell the investigator what happened."
cell phones were super expensive back then---and VERY large. If she was that bad off it would have been very unlikely she had one or the physical means to have one. my family was two parent solid upper middle class and we did not get our first one until 1997.
Worm is bond. Those mobile phones were so much heavier. The new smaller ones are much easier to physically handle.
shareNot to my knowledge. It would have been interesting to see what type of woman she was.
shareWould have been difficult to show in a kids show. Yes they made an orphan annie for the 1980's. But they made poverty look cute. Not sure how they would have made whatever her mom was going through look endearing.
It was the flip side of "the facts of life--which had a bunch of girls enjoying the 1 percent/yuppiedom--including a tough girl who manages to crawl in. Here is a girl who falls out of her prior life and learns there really isn't a secure safety net in America to have taken care of her biological family. It was mere chance she survived and found Henry...etc.