Mothers and breasts and bears: the cast reflects on seven seasons of ‘Workin’ Moms’

I have never been a mother but, if I were, I’d like to think I’d be the type of mom who could sit in a parenting group self-deprecatingly comparing breasts with her friends.

That’s how TV comedy “Workin’ Moms” came into the world on Jan. 10, 2017, with star and creator Catherine Reitman’s character and her pals appraising the qualities of their post-baby busts in a scene that is still funny and relatable, even for those of us who don’t have kids.

The series was born, if you’ll pardon the pun, from Reitman’s desire to see a TV show that portrayed moms as the three-dimensional humans they are.

It ends with its seventh season, beginning Jan. 3 on CBC, with Reitman feeling that mothers and other women are much better represented in the TV landscape than they used to be.

“When we started the show I think it was unusual for there to be a show that’s so female-centric, but I don’t know if that’s the case anymore,” Reitman said in a Zoom interview. “I just want to be clear that I’m in no way taking responsibility for that. I’m saying it’s refreshing and delightful to see. And I hope there’s a lot more.”

“I’ll give you responsibility,” broke in Sarah McVie, who was part of the Zoom call along with Reitman and fellow cast members Dani Kind, Enuka Okuma and Jessalyn Wanlim.

“There was nothing like it and it was so necessary,” continued McVie, who plays Val, leader of the characters’ Mommy and Me group (yes, the one where they were checking out their breasts). “It has been so empowering to observe all kinds of people, all different ages, all genders … who find it funny and entertaining and are hooked.”

Many more people got hooked on “Workin’ Moms” after the series debuted on Netflix in February 2019. It’s one of several CBC shows — including “Kim’s Convenience,” “Schitt’s Creek” and “Anne With an E” — that have developed passionate, global fandoms.

McVie attested to that, saying she’s been recognized all over the world because of the show. Okuma met a journalist who named her baby after Okuma’s tough-as-nails publishing executive, Sloane. And Wanlim made friends with some of her fans when she moved to Nashville.

The question of why the series has resonated the way it has was, naturally, one that I asked.

Reitman joked that she shot herself in the foot by calling it “Workin’ Moms” and giving away what it was about.

Obviously the show has dealt with issues related to motherhood: postpartum depression; the guilt of leaving your kids at home, the search for a suitable caregiver (hint: grandmothers aren’t always best); unexpected pregnancy; abortion; miscarriage; ambivalence about being a mom; mother-child conflict; stepkids.

But it has also been a show about romantic relationships, work life and friendship, an aspect that resonated for me as a non-mom.

“When the show came out, the reason that we so blindly and fiercely wanted to make it was because there wasn’t a real voice for postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety,” said Reitman, who experienced postpartum depression in real life. (The “we” are herself and husband Philip Sternberg, an executive producer and director on “Moms” who plays Nathan, the husband of Reitman’s PR executive character, Kate Foster.)

But she’s not convinced the series, as it existed in 2017, would work now, in 2022.

“There’s been a multitude of shows about postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety and being a working mother, and really good ones I might add,” Reitman said. “I think what people connected with (in ‘Workin’ Moms’) was what they needed that year … It happens to be that I hired really talented writers and really talented actors to play these compelling stories convincingly, and people connected with that. So I think how it continued to hit was we evolved as the times changed.”

Certainly, the characters evolved as the show went on. Some of their marriages and relationships ended — or paused and then resumed — they found and lost jobs, started companies, got older along with their TV kids, had breakthroughs in their understanding of themselves and the people around them.

That was particularly true in Season 6 for Kate and her best friend, psychiatrist Anne (played by Kind), who took a step back from their friendship when they realized they were pushing each other to be more harmful versions of themselves.

It all sounds rather serious, but the drama was served with large helpings of sometimes risqué humour: think Kate getting caught sleeping with an assistant with a fetish for drinking breast milk; or a pregnant Sloane getting turned on by her ultrasound technician — during the ultrasound.

As the characters changed, things changed behind the scenes too.

Wanlim, for instance, who plays IT specialist Jenny, wasn’t a mom when she joined the cast but had a baby in 2020.

“I feel like this show kind of prepared me for … the first stages of motherhood,” she said. “Just seeing these women work their tail off on set and then have to go home and take care of somebody else was just like, ‘What? … You still have to make somebody breakfast and, like, get their lunches ready?’”

Reitman’s character lost her TV father, played by Dan Aykroyd, in Season 2. Her real father, director and producer Ivan Reitman, died in February and, for Catherine, the end of “Workin Moms” signalled the start of grieving for him more fully.

“He was so deeply embedded in this show and in my career trajectory,” she said. “I have to properly now process that loss … already, you sort of feel depression when you wrap the season and then you go into that, plus the grief.”

All the women were feeling the loss of the series in various ways.

“It’s been a roller coaster a little bit,” said Kind. “Seven years is a long time to get to do a TV show, so I have an abundance of gratefulness. And then also I feel like I’ve broken up with this woman that I’ve played for seven years that I’m already missing.”

Given that she was raising her own young children while playing Anne, “I don’t know if I’ll ever play a female that is so close to the bone again.”

Okuma and McVie both described their favourite scenes as the ones in which the women were all together as a group.

“Once we say goodbye today, who knows when I’ll see you again and I don’t want it to end,” McVie said.

Despite the sadness, the actors expressed pride in the final episodes and excitement that viewers will finally get to see them.

“It’s such a good season. I’m so proud of it,” Reitman said. “There’s one episode in particular that our editors are saying is the funniest episode we’ve ever made in seven years.”

Speaking of episodes, it would be impossible to sum up a seven-season TV show with just one, but there is a scene that Reitman feels was emblematic of the series as a whole.

At the end of the very first episode — the same one with the breasts — Kate encounters a very large brown bear while jogging through a park with her baby in a stroller. A terrified Kate puts herself between the roaring bear and the stroller, and lets out a huge, primal scream. The bear gives her a look and saunters off.

The bear was a 1,400-pound Kodiak/grizzly named Whopper who, Reitman joked, had a longer IMDb page than she did. But he was also a metaphor, she has said previously, for the hardships and challenges parents face.

“It was the only moment that we had to fight like hell to put it on,” Reitman recalled. “Nobody wanted it. We couldn’t afford it. It didn’t make sense. It was this fantastical element in a show that’s very much grounded in reality. And all of a sudden we had a bear in the woods, a bear that doesn’t exist in Ontario.

“And I’m so glad we did because … there were ripple effects of something that stands for this whole show. Sometimes I feel like this show is so much louder than I am. Like there’s something within it that was meant to be told that has nothing to do with me and I’m just this incredibly lucky vessel that gets to do it.”

Debra Yeo is a deputy editor and a contributor to the Star’s Entertainment section. She is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @realityeo

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