The Baby Trap: Difference between revisions

== Anime & Manga ==

* In the manga version of ''[[Kare Kano]]'', {{spoiler|Souichiro Arima's birth mother Ryouko does this to squeeze child support money out of his father, Reiji, because she knows Reiji is the son of a rich doctor. (What she doesn't know is that Reiji is illegitimate, much younger than his father's legitimate children, and actively hated by all of them except Souji, the eldest.) She is both physically and emotionally abusive to poor Souichirou, and when Reiji finds out about Ryouko's deal, he asks Souji and his wife to raise Souichiro instead.}}

* The is part of the [[Freudian Excuse]] for a pair of [[Creepy Twins]] in the ''[[Great Teacher Onizuka]]'' spinoff ''Shonan 14 Days'': their mother was having an affair and had the kids in an attempt to blackmail the father into marrying her.

== Film ==

* One weird example: In the movie ''[[French Twist]]'', a lesbian asks her girlfriend's husband to get her pregnant. The film then picks up again after she's had the baby, and ends with {{spoiler|the four of them (lesbian, girlfriend, husband and baby) living together happily.}}

** The original release also has the husband being seduced by a guy. This was left out of the American release, for [[Values Dissonance|obvious reasons]].

** Another weird example: in the movie ''[[A Home At The End Of The World]]'' a homosexual man, Johnathan, is attempting to get his best friend, a straight woman named Clare, pregnant so they can both raise the baby together. When Johnathan's old boyfriend Bobby enters their life and also begins a sexual relationship with Clare, it obviously creates huge discourse within the trio. When Johnathan has finally had enough a threatens to leave them both, Clare reveals that she's pregnant, {{spoiler|although she doesn't mention who the father is}}. This causes both Bobby and Johnathan to [[Babies Make Everything Better|put aside their differences and they all raise the baby together as a family unit]].

* In ''[[Drop Dead Fred]]'', the reason Lizzie's mother was so cruel to her was because she used this trick to try and save her marriage. When it didn't work, she placed the blame squarely on her daughter's shoulders.

* When Julianne Moore's character gets pregnant in ''[[Nine Months]]'', her boyfriend and his best friend ponder the possibility of her using this trope, as he's much happier in their childless, unmarried relationship than she is.

** However, one case that [[Deconstruction|deals with the aftermath of this]] is ''Sisters Found'', where one of the lead characters had been adopted for just this reason. When it wasn't enough for the adoptive father to stay, the adoptive mother became an alcoholic and resented the hell out of her daughter. To make things worse, said daughter later finds out {{spoiler|that she was the only one of identical triplets to be given up - one of the other two had a medical problem and the cost of hospital bills was such that it was either give up one child or lose them all when Social Services saw they couldn't support their family}}. Not surprisingly, she has ''major'' commitment/abandonment issues.

** In ''The Secret Love Child'', the hero either sabotages the condom or simply chooses not to tell the heroine that it broke. Naturally, she gets pregnant. Naturally, they get together and it is All Very Romantic. Luckily she apparently really really wanted to have babies.

* Arabella, acting on the advice of her friends, uses this ploy to get [[Jude the Obscure|Jude Fawley]] to marry her. It works but, oddly enough, she forgets about the baby till Jude reminds her months later. She just makes up a miscarriage and he believes her. At first.

** Though she's certainly not above doing it, it's a bit more ambiguous than that, since she tells her friends (to whom she has no reason to lie) that she genuinely thought herself pregnant. It gets weirder though when eight years later, {{spoiler|after they've divorced, she tells him that they did indeed have a child together, born after they were separated, and could he please look after the kid now?}}

** It's also speculated that this was the reason the Muggles of Tom Riddle Sr.'s village used to explain why he inexplicably abandoned his previous girlfriend and ran off with a poor girl who lived in a shack - that Merope lied to him that she was pregnant with his child.

* In ''[[Brave Story]]'' we eventually learn that {{spoiler|Wataru's mom}} faked a pregnancy to get her ex (who was already in a relationship with another woman) to marry her. He does, but it doesn't end well.

* In the second book of [[The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants]] series, {{spoiler|a girl that Kostos slept with does this in order to guilt him into marrying her.}} In the fourth book, it's revealed that {{spoiler|she faked the pregnancy.}}

* In ''[[Weeds]]'' there's a rare male case; {{spoiler|Silas Botwin}} does this to {{spoiler|Meghan}} to keep her from going away to college. Apparently he thought this would lead to them becoming [[Happily Married]]. It does not go well.

** Later, {{spoiler|Nancy}} does it to {{spoiler|Esteban}}. This was less about maintaining a relationship than as self-defense against murder.

* In ''[[Smallville]]'', there's a male example in which {{spoiler|Lex Luthor}} does this to {{spoiler|Lana Lang}}. It's even more of a dick move than most because {{spoiler|the baby isn't real; he's been slipping her hormones to make her ''think'' she's pregnant, likely intending to play the [[Convenient Miscarriage]] card on her after the wedding}}.

** Not to mention that the doctor who reveals this to {{spoiler|Lana}} accuses ''{{spoiler|her}}'' of trying this on ''{{spoiler|Lex}}''. Admittedly it would make more sense that way to an outsider...

Kelly: (''whining'') Why not? }}

* Subverted in ''[[Coupling]]'': Susan tells Steve, "don't worry about it" when he asks about whether they're using contraception. He later learns in an infertility specialist's office that unbeknownst to him, they've been "trying" for six months [[Law of Inverse Fertility|without success]]. Of course, {{spoiler|Susan later discovers that she is pregnant, in what is debatable either playing it straight or a double subversion.}}

** Another example is when a woman got pregnant with her then rich boyfriend. She chose to keep the baby despite the fact that the baby is deformed. But the boyfriend lost all his money.

* On ''[[Revenge (TV)|Revenge]]'' Victoria apparently faked a pregnancy to get Conrad to marry her and then faked a [[Convenient Miscarriage]] to cover it up

== Visual Novels ==

== Western Animation ==

* In an episode of ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Donna mentions on her blog that she wants a baby, then jokes that she might conveniently "forget" to take her birth control pill before a date.