Eight is Enough by Tom Braden
I just finished reading Tom Braden's autobiographical book about parenting, Eight is Enough. Tom Braden was a newspaper columnist and publisher and also had a large family, including eight children. The book is about Braden's experiences being a father. The book served as the basis for the popular television show of the same name that was on the air in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Below: The Bradford family from the television show
- In the television show, the family's last name is changed from Braden to Bradford.
- In the book, the family lives in Virginia, Maryland, and southern California. In the television program, they live in Sacramento, California.
- In the television show, the mother (Joan) dies and is replaced by a step-mother (Abby). This was due to the unfortunate death of the actress playing the mother during the first season of the show and did not happen in the book.
- In the television show, Tom Bradford is pretty much a regular guy working as a columnist for a Sacramento newspaper. In the book, we find out that Tom Braden and his wife Joan were friends with such noted people as Robert Kennedy, Jack Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Jack Valenti, Yitzhak Rabin, William O. Douglas, Edward Bennett Williams, and Henry Kissinger.
- In the book, Braden is critical of the Nixon administration and tentatively accepts many of the counter-cultural changes that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The television show generally steered clear of such potentially controversial topics.
Below: Yitzhak Rabin
One thing that is not mentioned in the book is the fact that Tom Braden was at one point a CIA operative and participated in anti-communist efforts as a journalist during the Cold War (including once publishing an article in the Saturday Evening Post entitled "Why I'm Glad the CIA is Immoral").
Below: The opening of Eight is Enough from Season Two. Notice that they have started using the signature theme song yet.
