Babies Make Everything Better/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Having a baby will solve all your problems.

  • Played Straight: Alice and Bob are on the verge of breaking up, Alice finds out she's pregnant, and Bob marries her and both anticipate being parents.
  • Exaggerated: The birth of Alice's child somehow prevents a nuclear war.
  • Justified: Having a baby gives Alice and Bob a renewed sense of purpose and a responsibility which they rise to, improving themselves in the process.
  • Inverted: Children Are a Waste
  • Subverted: Alice finds out she's pregnant, and Bob leaves her.
  • Double Subverted: But then feels guilty and gets back together with her shortly afterward.
  • Deconstructed: Bringing a baby into a troubled relationship piles stress upon stress, making the situation even worse.
  • Reconstructed: The pregnancy forces Alice and Bob to work through their relationship problems so they will be ready for the challenge of raising a child.
  • Zig Zagged: Some couples find that having a baby makes life better, others find it causes or exacerbates problems.
  • Parodied: Instead of sending warplanes dropping bombs, Nation X sends a Delivery Stork to Nation Y, which drops cute babies and brings peace.
  • Lampshaded: "Bob and I are thinking of having a baby to bring us closer together."
  • Averted:
    • Alice and Bob's relationship does not survive, and Alice is left to raise the child alone.
    • Alice and Bob don't have a baby. They may or may not have broken up, though.
  • Enforced: Mandatory Motherhood.
  • Invoked: The Baby Trap
  • Defied: Bob considers staying with Alice for the baby but realizes an infant shouldn't have to solve their problems.
  • Discussed: "Does she really think that popping out a baby will make him fall in love with her again?"
  • Conversed: "Is this one of those films that ends with the girl giving birth and the guy magically coming back to her?"

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