Living With The Real Charlotte King

If you think Charlotte King played by KaDee Strickland is tough, strong and narrow-minded, then try living with my mother. My mom Nicky should have been called Charlotte King at birth because if it wasn’t based on a fictional character I would swear that Shonda stole my mother’s identity and gave it to KaDee’s character on Private Practice. What makes it even scarier, is that my mom is in the medical profession too. She is a nurse manager for the Dialysis Unit at one of New Zealand’s General Hospital.

MOM-THE REAL CHARLOTTE
When my mom and I watch Private Practice together, she sits in silence where as I sit in shock and amazement to how similar in personalities they are. My mom is a very strong woman who keeps work separate to her personal life. She hates talking about work issues at home because she gets enough of it from me and my Dad. She is also a closed book and does not share her feelings or emotions because to this day I have never seen my mom cry, except for when my boyfriend died. This is exactly like Charlotte King as we see her on Private Practice especially in Season One and Season two.

CHARLOTTE-KADEE STRICKLAND
“I’m a strong woman, I’m strong and I like being strong…” is one of my favorite Charlotte King quotes in Private Practice. It explains why Charlotte is who she is and she does not worry about what others think of her. Charlotte King has always been this way since living in Alabama with her Southern family. She grew up with two younger brothers where she felt that she had to bring them up because her mother would be using ‘the vapors’ and her father treated her like gold. It’s almost like Charlotte had to become an adult before she was even a teenager. This explains everything about why Charlotte is how she is on Private Practice and she doesn’t know any different. We also now realize that originally it wasn’t her wanting to be strong, it was the fact that she had to be strong.

MOM- THE REAL CHARLOTTE
When I think about Charlotte King, it saddens me to think about how she was brought up because like my mom, she too had to learn how to be independent at an early age. When my mom’s brother was born she was only 2years old, but unfortunately he died a few days after. This left my mom as an only child having to look after herself and even her depressed mom for more than twenty years. After 5 years my mom’s father Peter divorced her. As my mom got older, her father was not there for her and her mom was out with boyfriends which left my mom having to look after herself. She became head strong and independent as she had no one else.

CHARLOTTE-KADEE STRICKLAND
Poor Charlotte, everywhere she goes people think she is cold, mean, a bitch, even ‘heartless’ in Private Practice season 1 and some of season 2. Since Charlotte’s feelings for Cooper are real, she is slowly starting open up to show her softer side. However, once she found Cooper as a potential love interest on the show Private Practice, we got to start seeing the real Charlotte. She started to be vulnerable, and even started to talk about feelings even if they were just meaningless opinions. “Are we done with all this talking? Can we take our clothes of us now? “Is another typical Charlotte moment in Private Practice, where she just wants to have emotionless dirty sex with Cooper? It is Charlotte’s cry out for help because whenever a conversation gets too deep or too hard for her she clams up and shuts off her mind so she doesn’t have to think about it.

MOM- THE REAL CHARLOTTE
Since I can remember I have always known my mom as being strict, and she would always teach me from right and wrong. She would never let me get away with anything and I always knew when I was in the wrong. My mom is still like that in fact and at times she has been told by others ‘you just remind me of that blond character from Private Practice. You know the one that has the southern accent?” It always makes me smile when I see my mom’s reaction to that, because my mom cannot see the similarities at all. Because I am a talker and I love to talk a lot, my mom gets sick of me harassing her about feelings. She always ask about my day or how I am feeling and I could talk for a good hour, but when I ask my mom the same thing, the response I get is ‘it was okay’ or ‘I don’t want to talk about it’. This really saddens me that she cannot express herself especially when I can see what she wants to say in her eyes.

CHARLOTTE-KADEE STRICKLAND
After the break-up between Charlotte and Cooper on Private Practice season 3, episode 11 we get to see the dramatic changes in Charlotte as a person. She realizes that all she wants in life is to be with Cooper and would do anything to get him back. Charlotte starts to soften towards the end of season 3 as signs that she wants to change and not be seen as ‘heartless’. She is also trying to show Cooper that she really wants to be with him and that she is sorry for hurting him. Once Cooper finally realizes that breaking up with her was the worst mistake in his life he tries to win her back by proposing and to everyone’s surprise, Charlotte says yes.

MOM-THE REAL CHARLOTTE
Since watching the new episodes of Private Practice my mom has started to change. She has now realized that it’s not good to always be the tough one and if there is something to be said, to just say it because later on it can build up and be worse later on. My mom is finally starting to talk about her feelings and has even confronted her own mom Barbara about her troubled childhood. She even had the courage to tell her mom about what she thought of her about the time I was left alone with my abuser which was one of my grandmother’s husband (her 5th marriage).

So with comparing the differences between my mom and Charlotte king, I am now wondering if KaDee Strickland has a little ‘Charlotte’ in her? If she doesn’t then she is very convincing and I applaud her.