Is Julia talking about Betty DRAPER? From Mad Men? The character who's spent the past three seasons being more and more infantile? Don has people skills and like any working man would prefer a noncombative home. He suggests a pill and a nap presumably because that's been the ticket in the past. If Betty is newly empowered by recent events it's not fair to hold anyone responsible for that new development until it's been made clear?

Here, here. What person, overwhelmed by events, home to a family in turmoil, wants to be presented with a wife who is more whiny and needy than his kids have ever dreamed of or dared to be? Suggesting that she take a pill and a nap is probably a tried-and-true formula that she's used in the past -- he takes a pill that night: it's the era of Miltown.

The real problem was that Don had not been babying her enough.

He even took in her father, whom he detested and who hated him, in order to make her feel good (despite the fact that she then treats her father off-handedly). He supplies every material advantage she wants -- riding, clothes, interior decorator. She's given him so little -- complaining, irritated, rarely smiling or rewarding him for the efforts he has made. She's abrupt and cruel to their children, which he notices and rarely comments on, but he sees what a self-absorbed, abusive mother she is. He's "babied" her enough. No wonder he's looked for passion, personality, intellect, humor and charm from other women. He'd actually be lucky if she decided to find "love" or daddying with another man.

I agree that Betty still needs to be treated like a child. The problem with her and Don's relationship now is that she no longer has confidence in the man that she depends on, not only financially, but emotionally, in order to give her life meaning, purpose and direction. When Don tells her that everything is going to be all right she can see the self-doubt and anxiety written on his face (John Hamm's face seems to elongate and narrow when he wants to convey a feeling powerlessness). When Henry tells her everything is going to be all right, he does so firmly and with confidence. Betty, frankly, appears to me to have trouble being the figure with power in her relationship with Don, she has always wanted some, more even, but now that she appears to have it all as Don tries desperately to please her, she feels both repulsed and distressed by Don's inability to take charge. Henry on the other hand, rather than prostrating himself before Betty, expresses his desire to please her and make her happy, but does so in a way that is in a sense aggressive as he tells her in effect that she can become dependent on him because he knows what she wants and how to give it her, without her ever having to ask for it or put her foot down.

I just wanted to add to my previous post: When Betty tells Don she doesn't believe him, you can tell from he tone of her voice and posture that she means it. When she says the same thing to Henry, the edge is gone, as if she says she doesn't believe him because that is what one does, and she is just going through the motions, albeit on a subconscious level.

and only resents Don because she has made herself aware that the lies really are lies.

And what is more childish than blurting out in the midst of a national emergency "I don't love you anymore"?

Exactly! That was not mature.

Under the heading of "my 2 cents worth" I do not like Henry Francis. He is smarmy and weird. His behavior toward Betty seems almost pedophiliac, but that may be because she does come across as so child-like at times with the Bambi-eyes and all. Francis is a used car salesman in Savile Row threads.

Henry Francis is an unmarried, bad photocopy of Don Draper.