Mad Men: The 10 Most Shameless Things Betty Has Ever Done

Betty Draper is one of the most interesting characters in Mad Men. Despite the fact she doesn’t work and is always reliant upon her husband, that doesn’t mean she’s useless, as she is part of some of the shows greatest storylines, from both a comedic and emotional perspective.

Even after her divorce with Don, Betty continues to be an integral part of the show, as she is a main character. However, despite her sweet nature and beautiful looks, she is often childish, petty, and argumentative. Throughout the show, Betty does a lot of things that frustrate fans.

She can be cruel and harsh, which made her a difficult character to work out at times. Within this article, we will take a look at Betty’s time on Mad Men, ranking the 10 most shameful things she did throughout the series.

10 Moving To Punish Sally

After Betty marries Henry Francis, you would think she might want a fresh start a new home that Don had nothing to do with, but that’s not the case. Despite Henry wanting to move, they stick in the original property until Betty agrees to move, purely out of pettiness.

She does it to punish her own daughter, who spends time with their neighbor Glen, behind her back. Betty’s relationship with Glen is a strange one (more on that later,) but the fact she would make such a big decision simply to keep her daughter away from him is a crazy moment.

9 Gumdrops

It isn’t just Sally that Betty is unkind to, as Bobby also suffers his mother’s wrath at times. While she rarely spends time with the children, one occasion she does didn’t end well. She joins Bobby on his field trip to see a farm, but it all ends in disaster.

Bobby trades away Betty’s sandwich for some gumdrops, thinking that Betty wouldn’t be eating with him as she never does. Betty loses her cool and forces Bobby to eat the sweets staying mad with him all day to the point where he tells Henry that he “wishes it was yesterday.” 

8 Shooting Birds

One of the most shameful moments of Betty Draper’s life is when she whips out a gun and starts shooting her neighbor’s birds. It’s a moment of pure madness from her, and it highlights just how petty and immature Betty can be about situations.

While she does this in retaliation to their neighbor threatening the dog of her children, the fact she literally shoots his bird shows how poorly she deals with situations like this. Rather than going around to talk to him like an adult, Betty just shoots their pet.

7 Manipulating Her Friend

Betty Draper isn’t just horrible to her own children throughout Mad Men, but she can also be nasty to her friends as well, with the situation with SarahBeth being a perfect example of that. They both have a crush on their friend at the stable, despite him being engaged.

Betty isn’t willing to cheat on Don, but she manipulates SarahBeth into doing it. She sets up a meal between them all and then deliberately doesn’t show, and then takes the time to phone her and belittle SarahBeth for her actions, even though she made it happen!

6 Firing Carla

Carla is the original maid of the Draper residence at the start of Mad Men and is someone who had been with Betty for most of her life. She works incredibly hard and cares for the Draper children and goes above and beyond what she should actually do.

Once again, Glen Bishop is involved in this moment, another example of Betty’s obsession with the boy, as Carla lets him come in to speak with Sally. While Carla knows they’re not allowed contact, she is simply allowing Sally to have a friend, but Betty loses her cool and actually goes as far as to fire her.

5 Locking Sally In The Closet

Throughout everything on the show, it is clear that Sally is desperate to be like her mother. No matter how Betty treats her, she continues to look up to her, and that’s why it’s no surprise that she ends up sneaking a cigarette in the bathroom.

However, Betty catches her in the moment and rightfully wants to punish her, as she’s a child. However, her means of punishment are quite interesting and certainly shameful as she ends up locking Sally into a closet.

4 Letting Sally Smoke

Despite the fact that in the previous point Betty clearly disapproves of Sally smoking, later on in the series, she has another shameful moment involving cigarettes. She sees that Sally is wanting to follow her footsteps and wants to smoke, but instead of discouraging it, she just gives her one.

Her belief behind it is that if she can see what Sally is doing, then it isn’t as bad. However, it really is quite terrible parenting as she openly allows her daughter to begin a journey of smoking, despite the fact she is too young to do so.

3 Trying To Ruin Don’s Marriage

While divorce isn’t easy on anyone, Betty has another shameful moment when she tries to use Sally to cause problems in Don’s second marriage with Megan. As Sally is creating a family tree, she seeks the help of her mom and Megan due to the complications in her family.

Seeing her chance to cause havoc, Betty drops the news that Don was previously married to Anna, and tries to get Sally to bring it up with Megan. However, Sally is too smart for that and ends up just lying to Betty, but that doesn’t make her actions not shameful, using her child as a pawn to hurt others.

2 Her Relationship With Glen

This isn’t just one shameful moment but is actually several throughout the series. Betty has a very strange infatuation with Glen, despite the fact he is a child, which leads him to fall in love with her and do everything possible to be with her one day.

It starts off incredibly strange with Betty cutting some of her hair off for him, and it doesn’t get any less weird anytime they interact. This is most obvious in the final episode when he reveals he is heading to war, and the two have some very close, and very awkward encounters.

1 Slapping Sally

Without a doubt, Betty Draper’s most shameful moment is when she slaps her daughter, Sally, across the face. While punishing your child is acceptable, a full slap across the face is incredibly extreme, which is why both Don and Henry show their disgust and shock as she does it.

The moment comes when Sally cuts her own hair, which ends in quite a disastrous manner. Sally takes off her hat to reveal the hair and Betty wastes no time in slapping her hard across the face, showing absolutely no restraint.

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