Hauling the contents of your Manhattan apartment to the suburbs to raise a family doesn’t mean you have to leave your city identity behind. It seems that every few years there’s a hyped movie covering the scenario. The iconic Stepford Wives, which was written in 1972 and then became a film in 1975, portrays Joanna Eberhart, a New York City photographer who moves to Connecticut with her young family. Joanna is disturbed by the conformed lifestyle and questions if the wives are robots. This emblem of a period has endured by referring to Stepford wives, or living in Stepford, as the archetypal housewife who becomes a casualty of suburban living. A little over twenty years later is Ang Lee’s equally rich film The Ice Storm, which is also partially filmed in New Canaan, sealing its stature as ground zero of housewife breeding. The suburban stereotype analogue moves to the present with Netflix’s miniseries “Sex/Life,” which is far less nuanced than its predecessors. (Translation: a bit trashy). The storyline follows every cliche involving Billie, a young mother who yearns for her city life and the hunky bad boy who resides there, over the ho hum existence in her hometown of Greenwich. It doesn’t help that her handsome husband Cooper seems unable to shake everything his tie-wearing corporate life comes with. The first episode is titled “The Wives Are in Connecticut” to reinforce the theme.

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So why is the Connecticut housewife being blatantly labeled? The short answer is affluence and boredom. As a mother who lives in a commuter Connecticut town, the housewives are everywhere. They have significant income to spend on massive cars, customize cubby rooms to organize their kids endless gear, and participate in the town’s variety of fitness facilities and blow bars. Though for those who are reluctant to participate in the coterie, follow this 12 step program to stay aligned with your life before suburbia.

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