Father Knows Best

Bud moves out, but discovers he can't clean, cook, or take care of himself.

Jim comes to believe that he is over the hill.

Bud becomes increasingly paranoid when Kathy (who has a fascination with the new washing machine, and puts everything in there) places a letter addressed to him by the police department in the washing machine, and ruins the letter, so he doesn’t know why he is asked to be there within seven days.

Kathy writes the best poem in the fourth grade on what Thanksgiving means to her, and Jim builds the poem up in his mind to unreasonable expectations for a fourth grader. When he actually finds out what the poem consists of, his hopes for Kathy’s future are deflated and he disparages the poem to Margaret, unwitting that Kathy has overheard.

Jim becomes worried that things between Betty and a new male friend of hers are getting too serious.

Jim and Margaret rarely disagree on anything. But when he finds out Margaret signed them up to take dancing lessons, Jim refuses to do so, and ends up defiantly going to his old club, leaving her to take lessons alone.

Jim takes the family into the woods to cut down their own tree, and they become stranded there.

Kathy discovers a wounded Sparrow on the windowsill of the house—which she then considers hers—and the whole family becomes involved in trying to help it get better.

Jim receives a traffic ticket and Bud is appointed to be judge on that day.

An unwanted visitor that won't leave spoils Kathy's birthday party.

Bud is deemed a snob by the girls in school because he won’t speak to any of them. When Jim talks it over with him, he discovers that Bud‘s real problem is that he becomes tongue-tied around them.

After making a big deal about people keeping their word, Jim is forced to put his words into practice to set a good example for his family.

Jim wants to give up his office job in order to move into the country to lead a quiet, and less stressful, life as a farmer. Margaret doesn't think that he means it seriously, but he crosses more lines to fulfill his dream than he ever has before.

Jim is happy to learn his kids are planning to enter him in a Father of the Year contest. But things, of course, don’t go smoothly.

Even though finances have grown a little tight in the Anderson household, Jim buys Margaret a mink coat that ends up being more trouble than it’s worth.

Margaret tries to get her cousin and her boyfriend married.

Margaret's cousin (from the previous episode) is set to wed in the Anderson household, but things go wrong, due to the nervousness of the prospective bride and groom, and the wedding is called off. Poor Bud is reeled in to do a stand-in for the bride at the rehearsal.

Jim tries to help the children regain their confidence.

Bud injures himself, so Jim delivers the papers on his route to avoid Bud being fired.

Kathy and Betty fight for the attention of the same man.

Margaret worries the entire day over what will become of Bud’s future if he doesn’t develop good character. This is tied in with a baseball game Bud is trying to get to play in.