What are the top topics that are the "big ideas" of Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars?

The thematic "big ideas" in Schmidt's deceptively
lighthearted novel have to do with the events that were current during the 1967 to 1968
school year. This confirmed when, in April of 1968, Holling and Mrs. Baker hear the news
of Martin Luther King's assassination (April 4, 1968) along with the rest of the world.
The thematic "big ideas" cover social, cultural, and political
topics.

On the social level, one thematic idea is the role
and effect of television on the American family. Schmidt considers the impact of
television after roughly two decades of invading the American dinnertime and living
room. At first the invasions were from Milton Berle, Red Skelton, The Philco Television
Playhouse, and George Burns and Gracie Allen ("Say good-night, Gracie." "Good night
Gracie."). But in the mid- to late-1960s, the invasions were from in-the-field
journalists exposing the Vietnam War and university student hunger strikes and
assassinations.

readability="7">

Walter Cronkite was announcing new bombing in
Vietnam. I thought [the tights] might catch [my father's] eye, even though the CBS
Evening news was on.

On the
cultural level, Schmidt explores the business milieu and work ethic, often referred to
as the "rat race," of the 1960s through Mr. Hoodhood's competitive and big stakes
profession as an architect. He also explores the disintegration of the American family
through both the distracted indifference of Holling's parents and the nearly
catastrophic temper tantrum of Holling's sister.

The
largest "big idea" thematic concern provides the distant backdrop for all--until Mrs.
Baker brings the backdrop to the foreground--and that is the Vietnam War. Walter
Cronkite moderates nightly reports from the front lines of the "conflict" and Mrs.
Baker, a past-Olympian, learns first-hand about the terrors of MIAs (persons missing in
action) when her husband is reported missing. In summary, the thematic big ideas relate
to social, cultural, and political issues current in 1967 and 1968 and specifically
examine television (no trivial nor insignificant thing), work, and the Vietnam War.
Metaphorically, Schmidt is humorously exploding the vision of the perfect America by
exploding the image of “The Perfect House”:

readability="10">

all the cement squares were perfectly white ...
This was also true ot the cement squares of the walkway ... bordered by perfectly
matching azalea bushes ... alternating between pink and white ... [that] stopped at the
perfect stoop ... up to the two-story colonial, with two windows on each side, and two
dormers in the second floor.