Too often in past entries of the Heroes of Yore series, we have ignored the contributions of women in the field of awesomeness. Some might say that’s because women haven’t done anything awesome since they invented the “ménage a trios,” but I disagree, I personally thought “2 Girls, 1 Cup” was pretty awesome if you’re in the soft serve ice cream industry.
Regardless, women have made great strides over the last few decades. Shaved vajayjays, breast implants, anal bleaching, booty augmenters, tight clothes, dresses so short you can tell how dilated her cervix is, these are all great things that have truly helped the human race to flourish to the point where we now need to implement roving death squads to keep population rates low, (at least that’s how I’d do it if I were the president!)
Setting the way for the modern, 21st century woman, was a great lady who was an inspiration for people with vaginas around the world! I am, of course, talking about Clair Huxtable.
During the 80s and 90s, Clair Huxtable was a beacon of light, a modern day Statue of Liberty, shining hope across the globe every Thursday at 8, (7 central). Her life was an example to everybody, regardless of sex. She proved that a woman could run a tight ship at home and be successful at work, simultaneously.
Clair Olivia Hanks Huxtable, (nee Clair Olivia Hanks Gunderson) was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1950. She grew up in a loving and supportive household with her parents and three siblings, (two brothers and a sister). I say supportive, because Clair’s parents were very open-minded. When one of her brothers wanted to be a rodeo clown, they were fully behind his enrollment into Emmett Kelly’s Klown Kollege of North America.* When her sister wanted to be a performance artist on the mean streets of Skokie, Illinois, their parents were the first to help her pack her bindle and send her off along the train tracks to find her future. When her other brother wanted to be a dish washer in a Mexican restaurant, her parents helped him sneak into Mexico as an illegal immigrant to work.
Things weren’t as easy for Clair though. Her parents seemed hesitant to help her when she decided to be a lawyer. So, she decided to set off on her own to start a life in the legal system. She left home and moved to New York City, where she attended the South Brooklyn School of Some Lawyer Shit.**
It wasn’t easy for Miss Gunderson trying to make her way through school while also working part time in a giant mouse suit at a nearby children’s pizza parlor. She spent 14 hours a day dealing with little brats trying to drown her in ball pits or shoving slices of pizza down her breathing hole. And at night she went to school to better herself and reach her goal. It was a hard and defining time in her life. Clair was able to study, work and live in a big city at a time when women were too scared to leave their kitchens for fear of becoming up-to-date on current events, (which was strictly taboo, for current events were a man’s business in those days.)
While at a hospital one day, getting treated for knife wounds she received from some ten-year-old who didn’t like onions on his pizza, Clair met her future husband and all-around clown, Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable. A short wooing period occurred wherein Cliff made it clear to Clair that were she to join in a civil union with him they’d both have a lot of money, a lot of kids, a nice brownstone in the nice part of Brooklyn, (which is about as realistic as having a summer place in Brigadoon) and each week they’d have some wacky adventures, where they’d learn from their children almost as much as they teach them. Each adventure would be wrapped up in under 30 minutes and would bring them closer together as a family.
This sounded like the cat’s pajamas to Clair, so she immediately married Cliff, cut off all ties to her family and quickly jumped into bed to get impregnated by her new, rubbery-faced husband.
Over the course of the 70s, Clair pushed out five children. Four daughters and a son. They all grew to be well-adjusted, creative and smart children, (except for the second oldest daughter, who turned out to be some kind of hippy who dropped out of college, after one year, to marry Lenny Kravitz).
With Clair’s help, her children grew up healthy, intelligent, funny and well-rounded. It was her dedication to her many children that made the Huxtables such an excellent-functioning family unit. Even with the 90-hour work weeks, Clair was never too busy or too tired to come home and praise her daughter Rudy for her latest macaroni collage, or to help dyslexic Theo get through his English homework. The rest of the kids were on their own though.
It wasn’t easy being a lawyer, a mother of five, the wife of a ridiculously goofy doctor and a sex symbol in the 80s, (you better believe she was!) but Clair Huxtable managed to pull it all off in style, while staying at the top of the Neilson’s for five years. She has been the role model for many women in this day and age. She has inspired women of all races to work hard, marry rich and to look down on others of their own race while simultaneously decorating their homes with art work from the lower classes, as if to reaffirm their cultural roots. She should be honored with statues, her face on money and an official holiday! Something like, Clair’s Reverse Pregnancy Day, where all men get to spend the day pretending to be pregnant so they can see what it’s like. (And hilarity ensues.)
So, next time you see somebody like “Octomom” or Kate “My Stomach Looks Like Ground Zero” Gosselin, just remember that a fictional, television mom did it first and did it better, even though she was hampered by having a full-time job, being black and enjoying jazz.
And now, a Haiku:
Clair is as Gaia
Earth mother of Huxtables.
What a bunch of goofs.
*With satellite campuses in Luxembourg and Borneo.
**Not affiliated with the North Brooklyn School of Some Lawyer and Gangster Shit (NBSSLGS).
