So, first I win the Salt Lake Tribune’s online poll for Utahan of the Year, and now “the Brady Bunch?”

It’s actually a quite funny story. To begin with though, I have to confess that I don’t remember watching even a single episode of the Brady Bunch when I was a kid. But, a couple of weeks ago when Jewel and I took our family in for our end of the year, Yes, family, we really do exist, and we can even all smile at the same time, photo—I was pretty surprised when the photographer, after learning a little about us quipped, “Well isn’t this just the Brady Bunch.”

What? Okay, seriously? I’ve been called a lot of things, but…..the Brady Bunch? Those have got to be fightin’ words. Right?

Maybe a little remark like that wouldn’t have set your mind into orbit like it did mine.  But, there I was, caught thinking to myself, “What in the heck is this lady smoking?”

Do you know much about the show? Do you like it? Do you know why it was created in the first place?  Do you know what it was supposed to symbolize?  Do you think me and my family are like the Brady Bunch?  Sheesh!

For me, this lady calling me and my family the Brady Bunch was one of those dumb, insignificant, why I am obsessing about this but, I’m not going to let this go until I figure it out moments. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but dang it, I hate it when I can’t figure something out. Especially something the so surprisingly got me all riled up.

So, now I’ve done some research. Yep. Really. I even know, now, why Sherwood Schwartz came up with the idea for the Brady Bunch in the first place. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Anyway.  I’m here to report that I’ve finally identified the problem of that day—a problem that primarily existed in my brain alone. You see, I’ve always understood pop culture allusions to the Brady Bunch to be pointing to the white bread, glib, two dimensional notions of the ideal family kind of like the June, Ward, Wally, and the Beaver sort of references. So, when the photographer made her comment, it all seemed VERY far away from anything close to what my family could possible represent—TO ANYONE.

Steve Martin, the boy “born a poor black child” in The Jerk? Maybe.  But, my family is not WHITE BREAD! ?

Honestly, I don’t know why I paid any attention to the remark at all. But after taking some time to think it through, research the Brady Bunch, and write this way too long blog post, I think I might have had one of those mumbo jumbo personal breakthrough thingies.

Maybe.

Well, the thing is, I’ve come to realize, perhaps more than before, that I’m a pretty defensive sucker when it comes to the views others have about people I love. And, in a mildly embarrassing Freud-like acknowledgment, I have to admit that it turns out this all goes back to my childhood and my mother.

Side Comment: The above conversation is supposed to be funny—subtly so, but funny nevertheless. If you’re not getting that, it’s either my bad writing or your bad thinking (or both). But I’m going to keep writing, working under the assumption that you are laughing, even if mildly, and if not, that its just your bad thinking. Okay? ?

Okay, now, back to my defensiveness, my childhood, and my mother.

So, the truth of the matter is, as I was mentioning, that I’m pretty dang defensive of my family in general. And, there is NOTHING white bread, glib, or two-dimensional about any of it. Did I say that already?  For some strange reason, suggesting anything LIKE that, really stirs up the “Oh yeah, well how about I knock your freakin’ teeth out” part of me that no one is really supposed to know about.

There’s nothing than can provoke defensiveness more quickly than challenging someone’s notion of who they are and where the come from. In our heads, we all carry around these ever evolving but seldom conscious “stories” or narratives about who we are, where we come from, and what it all means about us. This story, in my head, is exactly where the problem occurred, not long ago at Kiddie Kandids’ when the term Brady Bunch actually short-circuited my ever so personal, synaptic reality.

The story, in my head (at least the abbreviated version), goes something like this:

Me – a poor white kid, raised by a struggling but dedicated cocktail waitress/bartender/single mother (did I mention I was an only child?), from the ghetto neighborhood of North Casper—that’s in Wyoming—who grew up listening to R&B, Hip Hop and John Fogerty (huh?), now a mid-thirties, divorced and remarried Mormon convert, Free Capitalist, twice broke-once rich, entrepreneur, adoptive father of three, now under federal indictment (subtle warning to those who like to say mean things publicly about government bureaucrats).

My wife – a divorced but faithful Mormon (and mother of three awesome kids), who grew up one of fifty grandchildren to the gifted scriptural and constitutional scholar, the late Dr. W. Cleon Skousen. The daughter of two political and educational minded reformists, Jewel decided for herself after a short stint as a Sophomore in public schools, to forgo government programming, and to graduate from the Utah Home School Association and travel the country with her family helping educate American’s about our Founding Fathers. Since that time she has become an experienced businesswoman, successful teacher, passionate lecturer, and for the time being, a very busy mom.

Our kids – A fifteen year-old up-and-coming fashion designer, a thirteen year-old developing stage actress, a ten year old budding engineer, a five year old (convinced she’s 18) deciding between becoming a lawyer or a ballerina, a four year old convinced he can play football, basketball, baseball and help his dad fight the “bad guys” all at the same time, and a two year old who is, so far, content just enjoying life. And, we have one on the way. So I suppose we’ll soon have to change from the Brady Bunch to Yours, Mine and Ours?

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it. I do admit however, that would be a pretty dang long theme song.

But, with all this explained, now I think it makes more sense why I might be so caught off guard by a passing Brady Bunch reference. In homage to the rest of my childhood television/pop-cultural aptitude, for someone to ascribe a term like the Brady Bunch to me, it might best be responded to with a simple, “What’chu talkin’ ‘bout Willis?”

Okay, maybe I didn’t actually say that – but I could have.

Actually the point of my whole blathering on is that my defensiveness (as is usually the lesson for most of us, most of the time) was misguided. Ironically, it was only in obsessing about this whole thing that I actually learned the lyrics to the Brady Bunch theme song (thanks to my very patient and enduring young children) and at the same time I discovered that Sherwood Schwartz intentionally conceived the idea for the show after reading a newspaper article in the mid-1960s that said “40% of marriages in the US had a child or children from a previous marriage.” The Census Bureau’s most recent statistics show that today, in 2010, stepfamilies are the predominant family form in America with 70% being “blended” families from previous marriages. Other studies show that as many as in one in three Americans is now a stepparent, a stepchild, a stepsibling, or some other member of a stepfamily.

Huh. Well, assumptions are tricky things. As it turns out the whole purpose of the Brady Bunch was to inject some practical, difficult and sometimes even sensitive real life narrative into the typical white bread, glib, two-dimensional presentations of family life so common at the time and I had gotten the message actually backwards.

Funny thing is, I don’t think the photographer gal was really thinking about ANY of this. I think she just saw the whole “three from him” and “three from her” combination of our large family and went “Oh, its kind of like the Brady Bunch.”

So, in reflection does the label fit? The Brady Bunch. Hmmm.

No matter what label might be ascribed; nothing can overshadow how much my family means to me. This includes all my kids, stepkids, and even extended non-traditional members. My family, even with all our scratches and dents, is something for which I am exceptionally thankful and proud.

And, for the record, I do think we could actually start our own TV show. We could call it Grand Agape or maybe Big Ardour – or something. I’m just sayin’.

The Brady Bunch? The Koerber Family

From Age 2 to Age 15 (Yes, Mekenna, you're almost 16 already.)

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