As far as we know Betty didn't fire Carla. Carla had been staying at the house to care for the kids while Betty was in the hospital. After Betty came home she sent Carla home, so Carla could be with her own family for a while. Betty seems to think she can take care of all 3 kids on her own now, but we know that is probably not true. Carla will most likely be back, working her regular day shifts sometime soon.

Hanna is right. Betty didn't fire Carla. Betty
says in The FOG that Carla is home for awhile
with her family.

Hanna is right. Betty didn't fire Carla. Betty
says in The FOG that Carla is home for awhile
with her family.

Betty is spoiled. None of the households in my neighborhood or my school had hired help, and their moms managed to cope with three or more kids. Maybe they were heavily medicated, I know I would be!

I have to disagree. I grew up in Northern New Jersey in one of the new 'developments' as they were called then, meaning the suburbs. We weren't wealthy but typical middle class. We always had household help, I think a few times a week She'd clean, cook for us, be there when we got home from school, take care of us - one of the warmest important people from my childhood. and yes she was black. Carrie. Just like Betty and ,sorry can't remember the name of the housekeeper she grew up with, Carrie was street-smart and wise and and a very soothing presence in the mist of a pretty dysfunctional family.

With Carla away, the pressure will be on young Sally to do household cleaning tasks and take care of Bobby. He will be the middle child, who usually has to fight for an identity in most households. Hopefully, Don will give them more attention now, but that scene in the living room with the new baby doesn't bode well. They were trying to get to know their little brother, and were quickly removed from the room.

Nothing wrong with the Draper kids having some chores-- with an allowance to help them learn the value of a dollar. And helping with the new baby would create a bond, rather than a rivalry. Of course, if those things were to happen, it wouldn't be the Drapers, now would it?

I lived in NYC until a few years ago and most of my friends there had nannies for their children. And even if they didn't have full-time nannies, everyone had baby nurses for the first month. Less so here in Chicago, though still some do. (Everyone, including us, has housekeepers, though usually just once/week or every other week).

Did you see The Nanny Diaries? It was a kind of silly movie, but really, many of these women, often West Indian in background, literally spend more time with their charges than with their own children.

My old roommate constantly is asking her nanny--who lives way the heck out in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, to stay late for this reason or that reason, or work the weekends or whatever. And there's NO way she can say no very often and stay in the good graces, poor woman.

I didn't have a nanny growing up, but my mother did when she grew up in Houston (actually a full-time housekeeper named Nettie who also took care of her and her brother and cooked, probably for very little money). Anyway, when I was born, my grandmother put Nettie on a train to Penn Station to help my mother for the first month or so. As an aside, and a statement about the difference btw the South and the North in pre-civil rights era, my father met her at the Penn station and she was literally in tears--of gratitude--because she couldn't believe it when a WHITE porter helped her, a black woman from the South, with HER bags. She couldn't believe it. She was literally blown away that a white person had treated her with such respect.

bree...
Betty grew up with Viola...

BC-- meaning no disrespect, but doesn't that sound kind of like Scarlett O'Hara's mother telling Scarlett "you can have Prissy when you go to Atlanta"? Or Lady Bellamy telling her daughter, "you can have Rose when you get married".

We had a cleaning lady when we were in England during the early 60s. She was a survivor of the London blitz and was the least subservient servant I ever saw, not that I saw many. My mother insulted her often, probably due to her own inferiority complex. Mrs. Wood was hard as a black walnut shell, and had definite standards of decorum for little girls. She thought we were very badly brought up because we used slang and couldn't knit a stitch. She "came with" the house we were renting and guarded the antique furniture with fierce pride. I couldn't get any tender mothering from her, but I did learn to knit a scarf.

If a thread is created that isn't even true, shouldn't it be erased?
Betty had nothing to do with the reason Carla left. This is exactly how stupid rumors about characters or storyline are created!

All I can say is this would be the summer for Don to install the A/C upstairs! Unless he wants to come home to an angry wife, he better make it nice and cool in that house where Betty will have 2 kids, a baby and no Carla. This should be interesting, unless the series suddenly fastforwards to the fall wedding and the JFK assasination.

@Jolie, I don't think it's going to fast forward I think the last episode will be the wedding and JFK. Oh, the anxiety is already mounting.

52--My point EXACTLY! It was amazing how entitled many people felt with their help, and even today, still do! And that stark difference in treatment in 1962 from when Nettie left Houston on the train and arrived in NYC was pretty shocking to my father, even then.

What wedding?! I would imagine Joan is already married; she wouldn't live with Greg before marriage. And she wouldn't quit her job before they got married.

I don't think Betty is spoiled. She works right along with Carla and I think she respects Carla completely. When she had that around the world party, she gave Carla the credit for doing much of the shopping and preparation.

I grew up in central Illinois, basically farm country, though I lived in a medium sized city. There were 60 kids in my grade school class, many of their fathers were lawyers and doctors. Several of them had housekeepers/nannies who came in during the day to help with the laundry/ironing (we ironed most everything in those days), cleaning and child care of the younger kids. The wives of professional men in those days were expected to give back to the community and they could not have done their fund raising, volunteer work, etc., without the help of their housekeepers who kept things going on the home front.

I wonder if Carla out of the show for awhile because the actress got a great gig in a movie or a Broadway play from her exposure on MM.