Why do people hate Betty Draper?

For all the talk about Mad Men - the duplicitous and daper Don/Dick, the return of a curvacous female body to our screens in the form of Joan (Christina Hendricks is a former model, might I add....still pretty unattainably stunning for an 'attainable' representation of women...!), the fashion, the nostalgia for a by-gone era - there is one conversation that irks me. Why does everyone hate Betty Draper? Don's icy, sad, beautiful caged bird of an (ex)wife. Ultimately, it is her treatment of her children that has everyone up in arms.

Betty is not always nice to her children. But why are we so hard on her about this? Being anything less than an adoring and doting mother seems abhorrent to many people - mostly women. Where is our loyalty, where is our understanding and compassion? I can empathise with Betty, and see her parenting as an inevitable product of the following:

Firstly Betty is from a wealthy middle class family, she is university educated, she has travelled the world, she has earned an independant living as a succesful model. Yet, she is supposed to be miraculously fulfilled by childrearing in the suburbs - alone, unsuported, devalued and trivialised.

Secondly, Don and the other Mad(ison Avenue Advertising) Men - are responsible for her shackles. They invented the mythology of the contented housewife, ostensibly to sell products, but also to protect their turf - to keep women at home, out of the workforce, and distracted with the attainment of a perpetually unattainable lifestyle. With womens' time, energy and brain power thus occupied - they are unable to focus on pursuits like entering, and working their way up, the workforce.

Thirdly, we are talking about 60's America. Betty is a first-wave feminist - in some ways. She is sad but doesn't quite have the insight to understand what her sadness is about. It is about the lie she was sold by her own mother. That looking good was the only important thing - then the husband, house and children all follow. But do they in themselves provide fulfillment or happiness? It turns out they do not. The husband cheats, the suburb is tedious, child rearing is relentless and thankless.

Of course, I feel bad for little Bobby and Sally, they are treated as inconveniences, they experience little warmth from their parents - but blaming, and hating, Betty for this is a bit like blaming the victim. Betty rears her children they way she was raised, and she has improved upon it. Just as her daughter will probably go on to do the same thing. Getting a divorce from her misogynist husband was a pretty gutsy and progressive step.

People just want Bets to be nicer to her kids. They say, "Yeah, but...(she could be a better parent)". My final question is: What is a better parent? There are specific instances we could pick apart of Betty's treatment of her kids, but I could pick apart nearly everyone I know's treatment of their kids (and they could of mine). Who is to say what is valid maternal love? I know people who hug and kiss, but who have no honesty or emotional intimacy with their children...

So, I don't hate Betty Draper. I love her more - she deserves more of our love and compassion - not less.