American Sitcoms - how much is similar to reality?

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

Driving while talking on the phone
Driving while looking sideways at the passenger for a long time
Driving after a good few beers
Baby into their own room from day1
Spending hours in coffee houses irrespective of working schedules
Hanging up the phone without saying bye
Hanging up the phone without clarifying where or when they will meet
Eating out 99% of the time

P.s. lighthearted. No dig at all. Be happy to say what the English do/don't do according to tv "norms"

Oh forgot one..

Ask out someone attractive, for a date, who you just see in passing

I've always wondered about maternity wards. In every American programme I've seen, if someone has a baby and their family or friends want to come and see them, they go to a big window. On the other side are rows and rows of newborn babies and a nurse will hold up the right baby. It looks horrible. It isn't really like that, is it?

Lots of those things happen in U.K. TV programmes too

I've always wondered about the drinking and driving one! It seems so normal on American tv & movies.

I watch a lot of trashy American reality TV and they seem talk on the phone a lot while driving so I think that one is accurate. Just holding the phone with it on speakerphone while they drive.

Lots of those things happen in U.K. TV programmes too

Do they?

I can think of lots of things that happen on British tv shows. Some true, some not. But none of the things I listed.

I have had a baby in America so might be able to help with the maternity one. I kept my baby with me in the room all the time but the nurses do ask you regularly if you’d like them to take the baby to the nursery so you can sleep. I didn’t see any other new Mums the whole time I was there as you’re in a private room but DH said he saw lots of babies in a nursery behind glass (like on tv). It’s considered normal, so that the new mum can sleep.

Their whole approach to birthing is very, very different out there. (I’ve had babies here as well). Much more medicalised, far less focus on the natural approach. Midwife do exist but they are not common. Babies are whisked away to be washed under a big tap as soon as they are born (maybe a quick cuddle first). It’s not wrong. It’s just different.

I don’t watch any current U.K. sitcoms so can’t comment on those.

US sitcoms: does everyone have take away/delivery/eat out for every meal like in the Big Bang theory? Is eating out very cheap?

When someone’s mother goes to hospital do all his friends go too?

People always say eating out is cheap in the US. But once you’ve added tax and tip into the menu prices, it’s no cheaper than here in my experience. It just seems cheaper.

@1066vegan

I remember as a kid, when a relative would be in hospital, it was common to go to the maternity floor to "see the babies". This was in the 70's and 80's. Back then, hospital stays were lengthy, around a week, so in order for the mother to recover and get some sleep, the babies would be put in the room with the other babies and it had a large window.

I had my son in a US hospital in the 90's but he had to have special tests so he wasn't in the "big window" but a special nursery and I don't recall there being one because I wasn't looking for it.

My grandchildren were born in the US recently and mothers no longer stay for very long (usually an overnight stay for observation) so their babies are always in the room with them. No more big window.

There was a big window in the hospital we used, but I guess I’m going back 10 years. Maybe it’s different?

My insurance also insisted on a two/night stay and I had to sign a waiver to be allowed to leave after just one night.

I’m not in the US (I’m in NI) but when I had my babies the midwives would take the babies that weren’t settling beside their mums into the nurses office and cuddle them/soothe them etc. They always asked if you wanted it btw! They didn’t just take them if your baby was settled beside you they left them with you. They would take them for you to go and have a shower too. It was lovely.

Why when they have such big apartments,do they sleep on the couch.

Sleeping with curtains/ blinds open. This is something I’ve noticed on so many American shows/ films. Is it really a thing? They go to bed and not only are the curtains open but the window always is too!

Oh I sleep with curtains and window open. I find it hard to settle if they aren’t open. Unless it’s really cold.

I like the windows open (I’m very menopausal!) however the curtains open would freak me out for some reason.

Bernadette--

I can answer a few of your questions:

Driving while talking on the phone? Yes and it's truly a pet-peeve of mine when I see people doing it. It's not like they don't sell hands-free kits or that you can have a blue tooth activated and have the person on your headphones or on your car stereo. People just drive with the phone to their ear all the time and not successfully. I can't tell you how many times I've had to move lanes to avoid hitting someone who can't multi-task and shouldn't.

Driving after a few beers? I will preface by saying that I love to drink. I love going out for dinner around Happy Hour to have a drink but I won't drive. I will call an Uber or a taxi if I am planning on having more than one drink. It is something I have never been comfortable with to know that even some of the most sensible people I know, have no qualms drinking in excess of the limit and get behind the wheel of their car.

Baby in own room from Day 1? I had one child in the US, two in the UK and they have been in their own room since Day 1. No one ever told me it was wrong, not even my health visitors. They were all excellent sleepers right away.

Spending hours in the coffee shop irrespective of working schedules?
Sort of. My husband and I have worked from home for years and many times we will be in the coffee shop doing work. We have known other people to meet up with their friends in the middle of the morning because their working schedules were not 8-5 but 11-8pm or 3-11pm and everything in between.

Hanging up the phone without saying goodbye?
Hanging up the phone without clarifying where and when they will meet?
None of my fellow American friends do this but my Mexican father and my FIL who is English do both these things. Lol

Eating out 90% of the time?
I personally don't because I love to cook and I am pretty good at it. I will go and eat out twice a month to a really good restaurant of food that I am not that good at cooking i.e., Thai or seafood dishes. I would have said that American people eat out frequently but not 90% of the time pre-CV19. In my city, our restaurants closed to eat-in customers but they were allowed take-away services. I belong to a "foodie FB group" for my city and I am amazed at how much people have been spending for take-away meals. Someone did put a poll up and it turns out that out of 400+ respondents, 60 of them eat out for EVERY meal. The rest eat out on average of 4x a week. It's not cheap either!

Asking someone out on a date in passing?
Yes. I have asked out someone and I've been asked out this way. Some of the funnest people I've ever met were from impromptu meetings.

Do the whole family and friends go to the maternity hospital and wait in a large group during labour?

Do women rush to hospital the second their waters break?

OK another American here.
On the baby thing.
Yes many do put baby in their own room from day one with a monitor.
I did this with mine, but also had a double bed in the baby's room and slept there until baby was probably 4 or 5 months old.
Talking on the phone when driving, hands free was legal where we lived.
Babies behind glass? They are in the nursery. All the babies are taken back to the nursery for handover between shifts (30 minutes) and at night for a while so they do weights and blood sugars and other checks, often the pediatrician will come to the nursery and check babies there ready to discharge them. But they spend most of the time with the Mom.
No one I knew ate out 90% of the time, everyone used to cook massive amounts of home cooked food and if friends turn up there always seemed to be enough for all. Leftover in the fridge where the teens graze till it's all gone.

When I lived in America there were a lot of people I knew who ate out very regularly.
I also experienced being asked out randomly by someone who thought I was ‘cute’ loads of times, seemed common enough.

Oh another question.

When Monica pulled a Monica and messed up the quiches at her mothers dinner her mother pulled two frozen lasagnes from the freezer to feed her guests instead. How in the name of all that’s holy were they defrosting and then heating those big lasagnes safely in any reasonable time frame so their guests weren’t absolutely starving by the time they were fed? Do American kitchens have magic speedy defroster ovens?

And the same when Joey took frozen steak out of Monica’s freezer for phoebe to eat. Magic speedy defrost oven?

Just from Friends.

• having a baby you can have baby's father, your own partner, the baby's partner's sister all at the birth, some of whom are in the air conditioning unit.

• you can have triplets, vaginally, with no extra attention at birth. They don't have to go to NICU and are just fine.

Straight away. And you get over giving away three babies to almost a complete stranger straight way too.

• you can be extremely slim with a tiny bump and still not have a breech baby detected until the moment of birth.

• you have a scan of a single baby which you show to the adoption agency and the prospective adopters of your baby. The fact that you are having twins goes unnoticed by: you, the actual mother, your doctors, and the adopters of your child You have numerous appointments in which the added complications of this would have been discussed, but this passes you by. Or perhaps you don't in America??? No one is aware that you are having twins until the second child appears. This happens in the Developing World. And in Friends.