In A Show Filled With Bad Parents, Was Jenna And Ray The Worst?

Billy Wall

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Who sends their child to another country just because they do “teenage” things? Talk about an overreaction. If they wanted her to stay away from Randy THAT bad and to teach her a lesson, the US is a very big country. Are there no boarding schools in Texas or other states? And for Ray to be behind this is laughable considering he’s not her biological father.
 
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Jimmy Todd

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Who sends their child to another country just because they do “teenage” things? Talk about an overreaction. If they wanted her to stay away from Randy THAT bad and to teach her a lesson, the US is a very big country. Are there no birding schools in Texas or other states. And for Ray to be behind this is laughable considering he’s not her biological father.
It's a good point you make about where the Ewings choose to go or to send someone. It was always out of the U.S. which never made much sense. Miss Ellie and Clayton would travel to Asia, but it never crossed their minds to visit California to see Gary and Miss Ellie's grandchildren. Or for Ray and Jenna to put Charlie in a private school in Texas. Even when Sue Ellen leaves she goes to England.
Maybe that's their Texan mindset. If Texas doesn't have what they're looking for, no other state could, so they have to go to a completely different continent.
 

tommie

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I dunno
I think it's also how the soaps would treat Europe back then - as this weird, exotic alternate dimension where you can either have someone mysteriously glamourous appear from - or send off characters you no longer had any use for.
 

Sarah

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Who sends their child to another country just because they do “teenage” things? Talk about an overreaction. If they wanted her to stay away from Randy THAT bad and to teach her a lesson, the US is a very big country. Are there no boarding schools in Texas or other states? And for Ray to be behind this is laughable considering he’s not her biological father.
I think it was because Switzerland in the day had those ‘finishing schools’ that was supposed to turn Charlie into a lady.
 

Snarky Oracle!

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I think it's also how the soaps would treat Europe back then - as this weird, exotic alternate dimension where you can either have someone mysteriously glamourous appear from - or send off characters you no longer had any use for.
I know, I know -- like it was still the '50s.
 

Taylor Bennett Jr.

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people complain about Bobby being sanctimonious, but for my money Ray was levels above the helmet-haired one... lord forbid Charlie do an average teenage thing as mentioned above - not even in the same universe as Lucy and Ray in their heyday - or JR mess around with his girlfriend when Ray had slept with his wife a few weeks earlier, or a professional use a commonplace legal or medical term...
 
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Angela Channing

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Jenna as an awful parent. Imagine making your child believe for years that the wrong person was her father. It was never about what was best for Charlie but what games she wanted to play with Bobby and Naldo.

I think it was because Switzerland in the day had those ‘finishing schools’ that was supposed to turn Charlie into a lady.
Would have been better sending her to a drama school to turn her into someone who could act.
 

Billy Wall

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I felt bad for Charlie at the time. It felt like her mother and Ray were abandoning her. What did they think, a teenage daughter would be easy to live with?

That’s exactly what they were doing. Ray pretty much telling Jenna that “we can’t let her drag us down and we got to think of us?” What kind of a parent says that?
 

Angela Channing

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I felt bad for Charlie at the time. It felt like her mother and Ray were abandoning her. What did they think, a teenage daughter would be easy to live with?
Especially as part of the reason why Charlie was rebelling was because she wanted Bobby to be her father, something that Jenna originally encouraged with her lies.
 

DallasFanForever

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That’s exactly what they were doing. Ray pretty much telling Jenna that “we can’t let her drag us down and we got to think of us?” What kind of a parent says that?
Charlie went through an awful lot when you think about it. Raised by a single mom, father not present, father returns, father killed, mother convicted of killing father, then Bobby dumps them to go back with Pam, ends up with a strict stepfather, etc. How could this girl not rebel? There would be something wrong if she didn’t. She really should’ve been in therapy at some point.
 

Taylor Bennett Jr.

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I don't think Charlie was so horrible compared to a typical mildly-rebellious teenage girl of the time, but.... why on earth did the powers that be think viewers would be interested in her hijinks?

Back in the day I imagine it was bathroom break or refrigerator visit time for a huge chunk of viewers, and now other than a moment of novelty seeing a young Brad Pitt, you can't hit that fast forward button fast enough when the scene shifts to the wildly non-entertaining world of Ray and Jenna and Charlie .
 
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