So, I watched Baby Mama last night. It was a cute movie, there were some laughs, and any movie with Greg Kinnear (who I think is absolutely adorable) gets bonus points in my book. But, I really didn't like the overall message the movie was trying to get across. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, it is about a 37 year old single career woman who suddenly gets hit with the biological time bomb and decides she needs/wants to have a baby. She is told she has a 1 in a million chance of getting pregnant, so she decides to hire a surrogate. Predictable hijinks and hilarity ensue.My problem with the movie was the message it seemed to be sending about families and motherhood. That if you want a baby you should just scientifically create one, who needs a husband or a father. Any way you decide to have a family is right and good. I totally and completely 100% disagree.
Being a single woman in Utah, approaching 30 (that would be close to 40 in outside of Utah years) with most of my friends on their 3rd or 4th child, I have to say that I understand what the main character was going through. I have had to come to terms with the fact that maybe marriage and children isn't in the cards for me. Does that mean that I am doomed to live a less fulfilling life? That I am never going to find the happiness and fulfillment I could have as a mother? I used to think that - but I have learned that the Lord makes up the difference. I can be just as happy and fulfilled as a single childless woman, as I can married with children. It's a different kind-of happiness granted, but that in no way makes it less worthwhile. There are no second class citizens in the church and my worth is not based on how many children I have.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints published a document entitled, "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" which states,
"The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity."
Obviously there are circumstances where, due to death or divorce, children do not have the opportunity to be raised by a mother and a father, but if at all possible, it is best for children to have a mother and a father. Yet this movie seems to be preaching that fathers aren't necessary, and if a woman wants to feel fulfilled and experience the joy of motherhood, she should just go ahead and do it. Which appears to me to be an incredibly selfish way of thinking.
I know this is a sensitive subject, and I in no way want to pass judgment on anyone who might have made a different decision, but I strongly believe in the importance of family relationships and think that if at all possible, children should be in homes with a mother and a father.
1 comment:
I liked the movie Baby Mama a lot, it kind of spoke to me a single gal with a ticking biological clock. While I think during part of the movie they advocated making your own family, in the end it showed that having a husband and father was better. Yes, it is still Hollywood, but I think it said look you can still get almost everything you want you might just have to wait a long time and go through a lot of struggles.
I hope that is true for me, because what I want when it comes down to it is happiness, with or without children. I think it's totally possible to be happy even if you can't be a mother, it just takes kind of a mental adjustment.
I don't take all my life lessons from movies, but take the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun. Frances buys this house in Italy and says I want a wedding here and children here. And she gets what she wants just in a different way, it's not her wedding or her children, but it kind of all rights itself. Anyway, I'm rambling. I do agree with you though, family is very important and children need both parents, we really can't rely on Hollywood for our moral compass or we are in for trouble. Ok I'll end now.
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