Desperate Housewives: How Alcoholism’s Shadow Shapes Lynette Scavo

The Prime Exemplar of an Adult Child of Alcoholics

Photo by Nikola Knezevic on Unsplash

When I was younger, I was a huge fan of the popular series Desperate Housewives. Every week I would wait with feverish anticipation for the latest episode. However, there was one character that I never really warmed up to during that entire time: Lynette Scavo.

To me, she was a manipulative, strict buzzkill. But when I recently re-watched the series, with 10 more years of wisdom under my belt, I couldn’t help but completely revise my opinion of her.

In fact, we have more in common than I realized at the time — and I don’t just mean that we were both raised by a single alcoholic mother, but how our pasts have shaped our adult lives.

I Grew Up With Alcoholics and This Is How It Felt

The Responsible Desperate Housewive

From the start of the series, one thing is clear about Lynette Scavo: her husband Tom may be the breadwinner in the family, but she calls the shots.