By Emily Giffin
Read: January 2010
Rating: Better than expected
I wasn’t expecting anything fantastic. I believe I bought it as part of a B1G1F sale, mostly because I wanted another book. The table was full of copies of the same 5 books–never a good sign, it implies they can’t sell them. But I took it home anyway, and when I needed something light to read in between work stuff.
The setup is straightforward. Claudia has always known that she doesn’t want to have kids. After a lot of false starts, she finds Ben, who also doesn’t want kids. SWEET. They get married and are blissfully happy for several years. …then something shifts and Ben wants a kid. Claudia does not. Knowing this is not an issue they can compromise on, they divorce.
Baby Proof is about what happens in the year after their breakup. Written in first person present, Claudia narrates everything as it happens. She doesn’t know where her life is going and neither do we. We have to take the punches with her and roll over the rocks together.
What I liked best about it? The avoidance of stupid cliches.
Ben doesn’t suddenly go all goo-goo overnight. It’s clearly something that builds slowly. And he and Claudia are able to be adult about the conflict until it becomes clear that neither is budging.
It’s Claudia who leaves. She has her principles–and they’re well thought out. She didn’t make the decision to remain childless on a whim, either. It breaks her heart to leave Ben. Luckily, she has a best friend and two sisters who can help keep her on her feet.
Claudia is an adult. She’s intelligent. Her friends are supportive, but know when to nudge her. She refuses to place ‘blame’ for her choices on her mother, who cheated on their father while Claudia was still a child.
I hate books that turn on a magical change of heart. This isn’t one of them.
I’m going to start giving some spoilers now:
Over the course of the year, events present Claudia with new things to ponder. She begins to accept that perhaps her family has played a role in how she’s living her life–but she doesn’t suddenly jump up and wave a wand. She is very, very aware of where she and Ben now stand.
We all know what the worst, and most typical ending is. Claudia has a revelation and decides she really does want a baby. She runs back to Ben, a misunderstanding is sorted out, and the whole thing wraps up with an epilogue that features Ben Jnr.
NOT THIS TIME, BAD WRITING.
This is a real love story. What will you do for love? What won’t you? A year later, Claudia still loves Ben, misses him deeply–not just as a lover, but as her best friend. She cannot imagine living the rest of her life without him. And this is what sends her back to him. She is now open to what she wasn’t initially–she will consider this baby business if that is what will make him happy, because it’ll make her happy. And he’s now in the same boat–he’ll forgo a baby if that’s what will make HER happy. Because they desperately love each other.
There’s no bow on top, no wedding bells… Just the comforting assurance that they are together now and willing to work so that they stay together, and both can be happy.
Will they have a baby? We don’t know.
AND THAT IS WHY I LOVED THIS BOOK. It’s about having babies–and in the end, we don’t know if they have a baby. They’re just happy together. (Which is, of course, the most stable setting to have a baby.)
I’m gonna rant a little bit now.
The world is fucking baby obsessed. It’s most demonstrable in film. Any time a woman gets pregnant, in movies or on TV, she always has the baby. No matter how stupid a decision this is, she always does. Why? Because baby = 18 years of drama. No baby = intermittent periods of drama and melancholy. I get the need for drama. But it’s setting a really bad precedent when women on screen are popping out babies no matter their circumstances.
Lynette Scavo of Desperate Housewives, is in her late 40s, has 5 kids (the step-daughter’ll come back), and she’s working an intense job that requires her to be on call for schmoozing at any time. Not only does she lie to her boss, friends, and her kids, she also puts the unborn babies at risk for horrible complications. I’m not talking about the plane crash, I’m talking about her and Tom being in their late 40s!!
In Waitress she has the baby despite her husband being an abusive, alcoholic shit. She’s so poor she couldn’t pay for a bus ticket if she found the courage to leave him.
Juno, though in high school, is at least responsible enough to give the kid to another family.
In Knocked Up, she’s a very successful single woman who finds herself impregnated by a dipshit. Sure, he’s revealed to have a heart of gold, but GOOD GOD, WOMAN. She was a fucking bombshell, it’s not like she’d never find anyone else willing to donate sperm.
Life Unexpected is showing the complications that can arise from such a decision. Babies don’t always get adopted. And no one adopts anything older than a baby. You pass out of diapers and you’re stuck in the system for life. And it seems that all adopted kids have a deep desire to know who their real parents are–and they just might find them.
And then there’s Secret Life of the American Teenager. I watch this because I like the secondary characters and I enjoy knowing what’s going to happen before it does (I’m a plot guessing MACHINE). This show was supposed to be realistic. Show the harsher side of teen pregnancy. HA! Amy dithered about what to do, she was leaning toward adoption. Then, at the last moment, ALL the other kids poured in and swore, “We’ll help you, Amy! We’ll all take turns helping you look after him–it’ll be great!” And she kept the baby. Even though her dream is to go to Juilliard.
Basically, it doesn’t matter in Fictionland how old you are, how you got pregnant, WHO got you pregnant, or if you can afford it. You’re having that baby, cause even if you support the right to choose, you just can’t bring yourself to do it.
Should the writers decide you aren’t going to have a kid, you will miscarry or have a false positive. No worries!
This is why it was so refreshing to read a book where having a baby isn’t mandatory. Now, if I could just find one where she has the guts to go to Planned Parenthood… That’s a story no one seems willing to tell. It doesn’t come in pink or blue.
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