Once upon a time, TV families were different. ”It used to be kids in TV families who caused the problems and the parents who solved them,” writes Pajamas Media columnist Katherine Berry. ”In the brave new world of reality television, parents are the problem.” Just look at Living Lohan and Denise Richards: It’s Complicated, two new cable reality shows that network executives want viewers to believe reflect more accurate depictions of the American family than fictional families of old. But Berry says these new shows will never captivate us like the Cleavers, the Bradys, the Huxtables, or even the Simpsons did:

Completely missing from these shows is the one thing that keeps us tuning in, year after year, to reruns of Leave it to Beaver, The Brady Bunch and The Cosby Show, the same ingredient that has kept The Simpsons on the air longer than any other sitcom in the history of television. At the end of It’s Complicated or Living Lohan we are not left with the belief that a family, headed by a wise and loving parent, will somehow come through its struggles better off and stronger for having worked through them together. Rather, we are left shocked at the complete and utter absence of a true parental figure and certain that, somehow, any problems those families encounter are largely caused by the parents themselves. If watching these shows leaves us with that same warm, fuzzy and affirmed feeling that the sitcoms of old did, it’s simply because – by comparison – our realities look so much more sane than theirs.

What a sad state of affairs.