To say that a working mother can't do all the things that a stay at home mother does is a little extreme. My mother is an elementary school principal, and my whole life, our house was never messy (with the exception of the play room). We even had white carpet in almost every room and it never had footprints or stains.

The family on Family Ties is highly similar to my own except for the way the children interface with the family. Malory, I think she's the oldest, acts as if she doesn't have the mental capability to handle the comon stereotypes associated with being the oldest child. One would think that an oldest child would be most responsible and not always fascinating themselves with new fads, such as the massage technique she was practicing in this particular episode. Generally, we see the older siblings and their side-plots to the main story in a manner that demonstrates spreading wings to leave the nest. Even with the Brady Bunch, Marsha and Greg were the oldest and quite obviously the most responsible, and near the end of the series, they both dealt with issues of needing privacy away from their younger brothers and sisters and weren't able to share rooms anymore. Even if Malory isn't the oldest child and she's the second oldest, she still is at about the same mental level of development as the youngest child who seems extremely intelligent when compared, relatively, to the rest of his siblings.