After deciding to become a stay-at-home mother, Peggy takes guitar lessons and writes a song that channels her frustrations over her situation. Bobby takes ADHD pills, which affects him greatly.
Tropes in the Episode:
- Artistic License – History: Emily makes the claim that Mother's Day was invented by greeting card companies in 1914, which is far off. It was invented by Anna Jarvis to honor mothers and became a national holiday when President Woodrow Wilson made a proclamation for it to be one. Although, given her character, this might have been intentional.
- There is Truth in Television to add validity to Emily's claim: while Anna Jarvis envisioned a holiday that offered mothers appreciation and respite from their day-to-day duties, she later disowned the holiday after feeling that greeting card companies commercialized it and corrupted her original vision into another gift-giving holiday where children merely fulfilled obligations to their mothers rather than actively appreciating all their mothers do and have done.
- Artistic License – Medicine: Bobby being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder by a school nurse simply for one instance of acting up in class. For that matter, the medication would not have worked that fast (especially in Luanne's case) as medications like that often take at least a week to cause significant effects.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Happens to Bobby after eating four bowls of his cookie cereal (with the last one Bobby has with sugar due to Hank thinking it was just oatmeal cereal) and in class, Bobby in his hyperactive mode gets disruptive with a teacher, who then gets sent to the nurse where he's (mis)diagnosed with ADD.
- Cabin Fever: Peggy gets this way, finding out the housewife lifestyle is not for her and even eagerly joins Hank when he goes to the guitar store and even takes lessons.
- Genki Girl: Luanne becomes one after she takes Bobby's medication, doing some chores, becoming a Motor Mouth and makes a snake and a squirrel from the hedges."Welcome home. I cooked you brunch, and I tuned your car, fixed your mower, and ate the brunch."
- Heel Realization: Hank argues with Peggy over what to do on Mothers' Day, with him insisting the family have brunch and other activities, while Peggy is insistent on going to the recital. Hank then sees the error of his ways and not only does he support her, he even gives her his prized guitar Betsy to play with.
- Housewife: What Peggy becomes, after blaming herself for Bobby's "ADHD", much to the joy of traditionalist Hank. But after failing to enjoy that life, Peggy in the end goes back to teaching, which even Hank supports as he sees that Peggy's more fulfilled teaching.
- Hyper-Awareness: Ritalin hones Bobby's attention to superpower levels.Bobby: [sniffs] There's some milk in the fridge that's about to go bad. [Beat] And there it goes.
- Laughing Mad: The housewives Peggy briefly hangs out with delve into this for a moment when one of them says it's a good thing they have coupon clipping to get them through the day.
- Mistaken for Profound: Peggy's Turtle Song, which she claims it's just a song about a turtle, but her guitar teacher Emily and the other women at the Mothers' Day recital think she's making a pro-feminist statement and were on her side until she ends the song by sharing her love with Hank.
- Say My Name: Bobby gets confrontational with his teacher during his sugar-high, with them exchanging his name.
- Special Guest: Ani Difranco as Emily and Tammy Wynette as Tilly Hill.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Hank encourages Peggy to stay home instead of work, even proclaiming to his friends it's "family values" time at the Hill household with the men making disparaging comments about women as careerists and the feminist movement.
- The Stoic: Bobby becomes this as a result of his medicine, speaking in a drawn-out, lethargic manner.
- Straw Feminist: The guitar teacher Emily, who in Bill's words, dresses "pro-choice". Downplayed in that almost all of her dialogue is simply about teaching Peggy guitar and encouraging her creativity. The only time she directly talks about feminism is during her dinner with the Hills (in regards to Mother's Day).
- Super-Senses: Bobby gains some heightened senses from the medication, being able to hear a fly scratch its legs together and is able to tell when milk goes bad.
- Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: In-universe, Hank doesn't like the original version of the turtle song because of how depressing it is and he insists on her giving it a happier ending. She argues she likes it how it is, though she does end up heeding his criticism in the recital (mainly thanks to Hank being more supportive).
