Categories: Random Musings
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by Candy • Thursday, May 24, 2007 at 12:50 AM
It’s probably a bad idea to post this, because it’s late at night, I’m really tired (I just got done watching The Host with a couple of friends, and I highly recommend it--best. dysfunctional. family. EVAR) and I haven’t thought this through properly, but what the hell--I loves me some living on the edge. And by “living on the edge,” I mean “rambling half-cocked about something that just occurred to me.”
It was all inspired by Joanna’s comment about her (no longer especially) secret love for secret babies in our recent sheikh romance entry. To wit, she said:
However, I have my limits. I cannot deal with purist secret baby. It is just TOO wrong for the heroine to simply not to tell the hero about the baby because it’s “her problem” (argh!).
Now, much as I love to bitch about secret baby plot devices, I have to admit I’ve read a few that were decently entertaining. A couple are even on my keeper shelves. But that comment made me think about annoying ways to bring about (or exacerbate) a secret baby situation, and ways that don’t make me pull out my hair. Certain types of misunderstandings I can buy, if handled right, as well as situations involving one-night stands. However, pairing the secret baby with another groan-inducing plot device, e.g., amnesia, is right up there in the makes-Candy-feel-all-crotch-punchy stakes.
But I think the most distasteful way to create a secret baby is for the heroine be a stubborn ass and decide to not inform the hero for no particular reason at all. She instead staples a board onto her upper lip to ensure proper stiffness, and decides that All The Baby Needs Is Her. And what drives me right up the wall is how the heroine is often portrayed as doing something noble and inspired, when all I want her to do is make her figure out some sort of equitable paternity arrangement with the hero.
And that’s when it hit me: there’s a rather strange stigma that stains paternity payments. I have an impression that most unmarried women who pursue paternity payments from the father of their child are often viewed with a jaundiced eye--not quite money-grubbing whores, but there’s a distinct “Oh, she trapped him into it” feel to the whole business. Not only that, there’s a certain value placed on doing things the hard way--even when it’s subjecting the person to needless difficulty--that often lends a sheen of nobility to that sort of enterprise.
Am I wrong? Because I’m thinking that some of the authors who have the Intrepid Heroine Who Strikes Out Alone Like a Dumbass are reacting to that cultural assumption. Feel free to hash this out in the comments, and let me know how full of shit I am.
p.s. Sorry I made this entry live before I finished it. Heh. What’d I say about blogging while ass-tired?
...make her… what?
Scotsie said on...Ack! Don’t leave us hanging…
Cori said on...It’s a cliff-hanger ending! But so far, I agree, I can buy a secret baby plot if there’s some kind of reasoning going on, ie., the daddy ended up being a dick, she can’t find his phone number, she strongly suspects that revealing the secret baby would cause dickery, something. Some of these heroines, though are all, “Well, a baby, guess I’ll keep this under my hat for eighteen years with no real reason. Surely the kid will never ask, and if he does, I can just say ‘Oh, I never told him about you, didn’t feel like it.’” Of course this never happens, being that it is, after all, a romance novel, but that seems to be the plan.
MamaZ said on...I’ve always found the expression “secret baby” an oxymoron because once that belly starts showing...it isn’t a secret anymore.
Hm, I thought my browser was acting up. Glad it’s not just me.
I hate the secret baby device. A man should be told he’s sired offspring. If he chooses to be a peckerhead and run out on his responsibilities (he doesn’t have to marry her, mind you, but he does have an obligation to be a part of the child’s life and share in the care), then he isn’t much of a hero.
I hate secret baby plots - in books, movies, soap operas, and in real life. It’s an outdated idea that should be put to rest. It’s quite simple: fathers should know their children and children should know their fathers.
Lisa said on...I hate cliffhanger endings.
Until next season?
Well, she did start out saying she was tired, but still…
What? Huh? Huh?
Make her pour bleach into her own eye sockets?
I loathe (stretch the word for amximum effect here) secret baby stories because it’s just another way for the heroine to Martyr Herself Since She’s Such a Goodly Person and All ‘Round Strong Feminine Type when in fact she’s acting like an irresponsible idiot.
Plus, as someone pointed out, there’s the thing about the belly, you know…
Ditto, ditto. There are very, very few secret baby plots that would work for me. Speaking as a single mother, I’m all for letting the father know about the Impending Blessed Event, even if you think he’s going to be a dick about it. If he chooses dickhead assholery and runs off, then she should take his ass to court and get loads of money in child support because people, kids ain’t cheap and they NEED things. Clothes, food, carseats, beds, toys, those outrageously overpriced school photos, massive quantities of socks, summer trips to band camp to do unmentionable things with flutes, etc… ain’t none of it free.
Women, be as strong as you want, and sacrifice yourself on the altar of martyrdom all you like, but do NOT let the kids suffer and miss out on anything because of it. Get that child support and use it to, you know, maybe support the child?
Argh! Yes, we’ve hit a pet peeve here. Anyone want this soapbox? I think I’m done with it for now…
The best “secret baby” book I’ve ever read was Rachel Gibson’s “Simply Irresistable.” The baby was conceived during a three day fling, ending with the herodaddy dropping the heroinemommy at the airport. Not a message that he’d want to be involved with the subsequent pregnancy/baby.
When the hero and heroine meet again five or six years later, the heroine has made a life for her and her daughter. Yes, the hero has money. But the heroine fears (due to some well developed insecurities) that he will take her daughter from her.
The secret wasn’t just a tantrum on the heroine’s part. Whether she was right in her actions is debatable, but they made sense from her point of view. That to me is what is important.
This is SO one of my pet peeves. Especially if he is uber rich and she’s poverty stricken but hard working.
She will work herself down to a nub of a waify woman, sleep in a run down, one room apartment with a kindly neighbor to help with the baby and her pride about money will prevent her from telling him about the baby, while she nobly tries ( and fails) to make it on her own without the big strong rich man by her side.
aaaaaargh!! Take that man for a paternity test and sit back and wait for Maury to yell “ YOU ARE THE FATHER!” And go cash the damn check!
I’ve written only one secret baby book--and it wasn’t *really* because the heroine was the adopted mother and didn’t actually KNOW that the father was her ex (who’d slept with her best friend back in high school, yada, yada...) but I never considered it a secret baby book. I just sort of used the device to my own ends.
BUT, the BEST secret baby scenario I saw was on TV, though I can’t remember the show. Might have been Judging Amy? I can’t recall. Anyway, the hero and heroine were very young--maybe just out of high school. They break up on very good terms because he’s decided to become a priest. He’d actually been fighting his calling and the heroine, though heartbroken, supports his decision. Then once he’s at seminary, she finds out she’s pregnant. The spirituality of the couple really brought another layer to the story. If she told him, she knew without a doubt he’d quit the priesthood and she also knew that she’d be destroying a spiritual calling. So she kept it a secret.
Then later in life (10 years, I think) she dies. He’s told he was the biological father.
Anyway, I found it a fascinating story and the first time a secret baby scenario really worked for me on many levels.
I think it can work in the right hands. But I do think that it’s getting harder and harder to pull off well nowadays when father’s rights are finally being recognized.
Agree, agree, agree…
... but what does Candy WANT her to do??? That, bitches, is not going to let me concentrate all day!
spamfoiler: taken26 hah!
Candy said on...Ha! Sorry for that. I forgot to make this a closed entry; meant to finish it when I woke up. Ooops.
Just Curious said on...Okay, moving momentarily beyond the cliffhanger ending . . .
What is so noble about a woman “martyring herself” (read, “needlessly depriving an innocent baby who didn’t ask to be conceived in the first place” - can anyone say “condoms”???) because she’s too proud to ask the baby’s daddy to hold up his end of the responsibilities? Hello - isn’t pride one of the seven deadly sins? Hardly martyrrific!
Since we now know what causes babies, it would seem that the more modern the novel, the less plausible the “secret baby” device, unless the heroine is a totally irresponsible sluttipants, which again doesn’t seem too, well, heroinic.
Having said (okay, ranted) all that, I have to bring up my all-time fave “secret baby” novel: The Thornbirds! (And having a young Richard Chamberlain play the priest in the miniseries has nothing to do with it. Yum!)
Oh, BTW, I’m new here. Hi!
“the hero and heroine were very young--maybe just out of high school. They break up on very good terms because he’s decided to become a priest. He’d actually been fighting his calling and the heroine, though heartbroken, supports his decision. Then once he’s at seminary, she finds out she’s pregnant. The spirituality of the couple really brought another layer to the story. If she told him, she knew without a doubt he’d quit the priesthood and she also knew that she’d be destroying a spiritual calling. So she kept it a secret.”
The Thorn Birds? I think I read this one. That’s the title that came to mind.
I think what I hate the most is these books start out implying the hero is an asshat in fact go overboard to make the hero seem really truly an asshet.
Then they try and switch it. I am going huh? Why would you want to be with him at all.
Get a court order and get money but but but.... him?
Yes, Teddy Pig, I agree. That kind of thing reminds me of the old, “Stay together for the CHILDREN!” thing that bugs the everlovin’ shit out of me.
Kids look closely at their parents’ relationship. Good, bad, or indifferent, that is their model for how relationships should be. If they see Daddy cheating on Mommy (and kids aren’t stupid, they’ll figure it out) or yelling at her or hitting her--or vice versa because God knows there are some fucked up and maladjusted women out there too--that’s what kids think is normal. Do you want your sons and daughters growing up thinking this is how they should be treated in their own relationships?
Broken home, whatever. When someone leaves a situation like that, they FIX their home.
Yes, hot-button for me. Parents should protect their children passionately, with all their strength of will and body and mind. I can’t stand the whole martyrdom thing when it comes to parenthood, not in any fashion. It’s always the kids who end up suffering, and it’s not admirable in any way to me.
Joanna said on...I’ve got to speak up for this much-maligned plotline.
It’s the real life v romance split for me. Real life = people must think of the children first, be emotionally and financially responsible for their actions etc. etc. Romance = pretty much any old crap goes provided the characters work and it’s well-written.
I’m pretty happy to step into a fictional world where I heartily disagree with what the characters do provided they live and breathe on the page. So, for example, if the heroine is a one-dimensional martyr who is selfishly denying her child a father for No Apparent Reason, I fucking hate her and hate the book. BUT, if she is a well-realised character, with a some reason for not telling the father, then I can live with it (even if it’s a crap reason provided I believe the character would believe in that reason). I detest Pollyanna heroines so if said heroine actually admits that she was being a bitch to get back at the hero or just totally stupid, I’m happy with that. I love heroines with faults.
Let’s face it: a lot of romance novels are emotional pornography. Lots of angst and people being unable to live without each other and hearts clutching dramatically and so on. No-one really behaves like that in real life, but we like to pretend.
Someone (sorry can’t recall who) once explained that your standard fairy story usually follows the same happiness-blueprint. Imagine a graph in which one axis represents time and the other represents the heroine’s happiness. At the start of the story, the heroine’s happiness will be pretty low. It will then start to slowly build, perhaps suffer a few small peaks and troughs, then suddenly wildly dip into hopelessness before jumping back up off the scale at the end into infinite HEA. As a formula, it’s worked since Cinderella and in my view secret babies can fit the mould pretty well.
I read pretty widely. If I want to read something realistic and true that tells me about the human condition, I’ll do that. But sometimes I just want to read the equivalent of macaroni cheese. Y’know?
“the equivalent of macaroni cheese.”
Kraft blue box special? I love it!
Being a single mother of two children I detest most secret baby romances. I think heroines who know who the father is and know his address are stupid for not reaching out. Keeping the baby to yourself is just plain selfish. Children are wonderful, they make you laugh, they make you cry, and on certain days scream.
I can’t remember what book just turned me off, but the father who the mother had a one night stand with was her new landlord. It’s one thing for the guy not to put two and two together but throughout the novel the heroine lied about her child’s age, the child’s last name, and many other things so that he wouldn’t think the child was his. Her reason was that he was a family man and would want to marry her once he found out.
WTF?
Couldn’t she have said no to a proposal. Couldn’t she have buckled down and shared their child with him anyway. NOPE! The hero found out because she had put up the paper you get with the child’s footprints that has the birthdate on it. I cheered when he told her what a selfish bitch she’d been.
Because of this book I don’t do secret baby stories anymore. It’ll have to be one of my favorite authors who sneaks this plot by me for me to read it.
A well written character may sell a used and tired plotline, agreed. However, I do have trouble relating to characters who veer too much from common sense. [I may enjoy the book one time, but it’s not likely to become a keeper. And given my personal circumstances and preferences, it’s keepers I’m looking for, not ‘one time reads.’]
What does that have to do with anything? Well, when the heroine’s only reason to deny the child its father is “getting back at the hero” I can’t buy into that. I don’t want Pollyanna, but I don’t want selfish stupid bitch either.
And as far as the real life vs romance split? I must know people far off the mean then, because I’ve seen pretty fucked up choices (regarding their love life), from people who otherwise seem to manage their lives reasonably well.
Ellie M. said on...Seems like in many of the secret baby stories I read, the heroine was convinced her Impregnator would take the baby away, and it would be a Bad Thing for the baby. I don’t know how in Romanceland (or IRL, for that matter) the courts would choose between the poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks and the wealthy, respected Impregnator from the right side of the tracks.
Like anything else in fiction, the secret baby plot can be made to work. (Of course it can fail spectacularly, and that’s more likely. But just because something is easy to screw up doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do right.)
I’m with TeddyPig on the asshat thing. A secret baby scenario where the biological father is truly an asshat, and that’s why mom doesn’t tell him about the baby, makes sense. Mom shortly thereafter getting together with asshat is stupid.
Argh, the plot bunnies are gathering… Say the asshat is being an asshat because he’s 18 years old and more than the usual amount immature. And he has stupid friends giving him poor advice (oooh! Rival girlfriend throwing a monkey wrench in the mix!). And now fifteen or twenty years pass, and he’s in in his 30s, and he’s ditched his stupid friends--maybe recently divorced from the stupid bint rival girlfriend.
A good writer could make me believe a turnaround there. But they would have to give the turnaround the time it deserves, not a mere single chapter of conversion that makes Paul on the road to Damascus look like a waffler.
Heh, wordver is “theory14”. This must be at least my 50th theory!
OMG! I must get some Kraft mac ‘n cheese for dinner. (Yes, sometimes I’m that suggestable.)
Since I “mostly” read historicals the secret baby sometimes makes a little more sense.
Jen C said on...I tend to hate all secret baby plotlines, because I haven’t read one that worked to me. Secret babies seem to increase the likelyhood that the woman will engage in TSTL behavior (and I include not asking for child support in this list, if for no other reason than no book has had a convincing reason not to) AND often includes the “heroine has sex once, then never again for ten years” plot point, which I hate because the man is out sexing everything that moves AND doesn’t have a child to take care of. Arg.
I also hate when the now-grown child sets up her parents and I am supposed to think its the cutest thing ever, but I hate the presence of children in my romance novel as anything other than a warning to nearby heroines and heros to wrap it up. Whenever there is a child involved in the romance, it makes marriage more necessary, and dating less fun- because you can’t just bring home anyone and let the kids get attached, so there has to be a certain level of seriousness. Often its because the heroine needs money or a father figure for the kids, which also seems less genuine, even if she really does love him. Extra hatred points if said child is smarter than the grown-ups.
Heh, I sound like such a bitch here.
Anyway, a little more on topic- I think that in society in general, the women that seek help or refuse help from their child(ren)’s father(s) are only seen as villians- regardless of which they pick to do- if they are poor. Then they are golddiggers or falsely proud. Its absolutely a class thing. I also think the public at large doesn’t realize how damn hard it is to get payments, in many cases, and they still judge women not realizing the women realize it isn’t worth it to try to get money from a guy in cash businesses, or who already has payments due to other kids.
I know this isn’t in all secret baby books, but why do the majority of secret babies happen to women with no money? In Romanceland, why are single mothers supposed to be uneducated and unemployed (or only has a McJob)? Is it because they only have a McJob that they can’t afford a condom?!?
However, if the father is (and he usually is) some guy with more money than Croesus, couldn’t he afford the condom?
Or do the residents of Romanceland have an usually high percentage of condom breakage?
(Or have I read too many Harlequin Presents in the past?)
Ellie M wrote:
Seems like in many of the secret baby stories I read, the heroine was convinced her Impregnator would take the baby away, and it would be a Bad Thing for the baby. I don’t know how in Romanceland (or IRL, for that matter) the courts would choose between the poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks and the wealthy, respected Impregnator from the right side of the tracks.
I agree. That does seems to be how the heroine reasons in sekkrit baby-plots and that’s the reason I can’t stand them.
If the eebil impregnator is such an asshat, then how the fuck can you plausibly get from there to an HEA?
Another common twist to this plot is when eebil impregnator finds out about baby, he promptly blackmails dumbass intrepid heroine into marriage and treats her like shit.
Of course, from there on it’s only a matter of time before she falls utterly in love with him and All Is Well Forevah.
Hmrf!
*Stomps off to kick silly heroine ass*
The only ‘secret baby’ plot that I can think of off hand that did NOT make me want to slap the heroine is “Nobody’s Baby But Mine” by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. The baby was a secret for about ten minutes, the mother was portrayed as a twit for wanting to KEEP it a secret, and the dad was suitably angry about the whole thing. A rather funny book. I think that’s what saved it - not taking the whole thing too seriously.
See, now I can handle the whole Secret Baby thing much better in a historical. Back when there was a huge disgrace attached to being a single mother or an illegitimate child. And there were a lot more of those than you might think. Working on family genealogy has been a real eye-opener for me. I have found fudged wedding dates, fictional disappearing husbands, and fifty-year-old women (with eighteen-year-old daughters) miraculously having children. Once the whole family gets invested in whatever polite fiction they have created to cover the ‘immoral’ behavior, it would be really hard to be honest about it.
In a contemporary? There better be a very good explanation for keeping the secret. It’s hard enough raising kids with two parents and two incomes. My first reaction is that any woman who wants to do it on her own should have her head examined. Particularly if it’s for vague noble and self-sacrificing reasons.
On the other hand, The Man of the House tells me he regularly hears men complaining about making child support payments. Apparently the standard rant is something along the lines of: “That greedy bitch just wants my money.” To which my husband’s reaction is to deliver a lecture that boils down to: “Were you not there when that baby was made?” So, yeah, there’s a certain stigma attached to wanting child support.
What they all said.
‘Secret’ babies work in historicals, but today, they just scream stupid.
‘nuf said.
today, they just scream stupid
My dislike of the secret baby is partly about teh stoopid and partly frustration that those “historical” issues are still with us. As you-all said, there’s still a stigma about single-mothering (tell the father = greedy biatch. don’t tell = selfish biatch). Meanwhile, who’s thinking about the child? And why isn’t mommy-to-be angry enough at the turn her life’s taken to go kick some daddy-to-be ass?
As soon as the seekrit baby is invoked, I go from Aw, it’s lurve straight to Yes she’s stupid, but even if she did things differently there’s no good solution, do not pass Go. How can you have a HEA with all that to contend with?
Bottom line, yes secret mommies make me roll my eyes. But worse, secret babies bring up a lot of anger and sadness over the state of society, and that kills the fantasy.
Audrey said on...Secret baby plots are definitely not my favorites. The only reason I could think of in real life to keep the baby a secret is if the guy’s presence in the baby’s life would be detrimental or dangerous. But then why were you with him in the first place? Could happen though, but wouldn’t make for a good romance novel.
I don’t think that women who request child support are looked down on where I live. Not totally sure why but maybe partly because it’s seen as a man’s responsibility, no doubt about it, but also because you don’t personally have to go chasing them for money, you just register with a government agency which collects from him.
Stephanie D said on...Here is the thing though… everyone says the secret baby plot is tired, outdated, in most cases silly but…
They still sell. H/S continues to produce them. Writers continue to write them. Why? Because readers want them!!!
The word “baby” appears in how many titles? I would bet a large percentage of those stories are secret baby stories. There is a reason why marketing does that.
As someone who wrote for Bombshell - I was told over and over again that readers wanted new, fresh, different. Not the same old story over again.
You know why I was told the Bombshell line failed… because readers didn’t like the “non-traditional” stories.
I’m not sticking up for secret baby plots. I’m just saying there is a reason why they are so popular. People may say they want change… until they get it.
Just my two cents anyway.
>>On the other hand, The Man of the House tells me he regularly hears men complaining about making child support payments. Apparently the standard rant is something along the lines of: “That greedy bitch just wants my money.”
Yeah, I don’t think I know any support-paying dads who don’t blame the ex for the $$ or feel they’ve been screwed (in a non-literal sense). God forbid there be alimony involved for the SAHM who quit working 15 yrs ago to raise the kids. But I don’t have a large circle of acquaintances, either. Surely this (the complaining, not my hermitishness) has to figure in there somewhere?
Elizabeth Lowell has written a couple of secret babies, including To the Ends of the Earth, which is the very first thing of hers that I read. If I recall correctly, the baby is secret because the hero accused the heroine of only being after his money and they broke up acrimoniously. And then there’s tragedy. Stiff upper lip heroines frequently irritate me, but I tolerated this because, well, it was the first really saucy romance novel I ever read and it was hott. But the hero is still kind of an asshat.
One of her Westerns also has a secret baby. I wanna say it’s Warrior or Fever or A Woman Without Lies, but I can’t remember. There’s a scene with the pregnant chick sitting on a mountainside boo-hooing and it really pissed me off. Sack up, ho.
Just touching on Candy’s point, backed up by SandyW, re: the stigma attached to child welfare payments. I’m starting to think this is very much culturally rather than universally male. DH, who grew up east of the Iron Curtain, often relates stories of his education. He tells me it was drilled into their heads that, in fact, THEY were responsible for pregnancies due to higher teenage-male sex drives and subsequent pressure on the women.
Which would make you think that they put women up on pedestals, except all of J’s physics professors were women. And he says his smartest maths prof was also a woman. And most of the country’s legal judges were women too. And his aunt worked in a coal mine and, even after retirement, can still pick up and carry her husband across the room.
So, for me, the stigma is definitely cultural.
(I keep trying to mentally translate various plot devices to continental Europe sensibilities. Not all of them fit.)
Boo. One lousy quote mark and I eff up the hyperlink.
I read lots of those in my younger days- most historical. I didn’t mind them so much b/c of the attitudes of the times. What annoyed me was the dumb heroine who slept with the guy (usually the jerk-changed-by-love-of-a-good-woman varity) in the first place. They always get knocked-up the first time round. So predictable.
I think it can work in the right hands. But I do think that it’s getting harder and harder to pull off well nowadays when father’s rights are finally being recognized.
This comment sort of stopped me in my tracks for a little while, because from my understanding of the way things worked--legally and otherwise--it’s only fairly recently that mother’s rights are recognized. I do agree that the father has a right to know about his children, but the term “father’s rights” tends to make me pause and go “Whuh?”, the way “men’s rights” and “masculist” do.
The only ‘secret baby’ plot that I can think of off hand that did NOT make me want to slap the heroine is “Nobody’s Baby But Mine” by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. The baby was a secret for about ten minutes, the mother was portrayed as a twit for wanting to KEEP it a secret, and the dad was suitably angry about the whole thing. A rather funny book. I think that’s what saved it - not taking the whole thing too seriously.
Oh, man, somebody invoked Nobody’s Baby But Mine. That book makes me so angry. Not really the secret baby in and of itself--that part kind of blew right by me because it was utterly eclipsed by the awfulness of the heroine and the very premise of the book.
An allegedly smart woman wants to have a less-than-smart baby and tries to fuck somebody stupid to effect this. WHAT. THE. FUCK. First of all, the fact that she’d do something so screamingly stupid pretty much shatters the idea that she’s any kind of smart. She’s not a biologist, but she’s a scientist, ferchrissakes, so you think she’d do some kind of preliminary research and find out about the heritability of intelligence (answer: it’s really, really complex, and there’s no real conclusive evidence, though this recent article about praise is somewhat telling, in my opinion). Her motivation--she had an awful time in school, and she wants to spare her kid the same--is also as substantial as a stripper’s thong, and just about as savory. And picking a football player because, y’know, all jocks are teh dummmb? What in the hell kind of stupid stereotyping is THAT? Auuuugh.
In short, she’s one of the worst examples of the allegedly smart, geeky, feminist women in Romance who are pretty much nothing of that sort. We’re constantly told about what a powerhouse of a brain she has, but she shows little proof of it, other than an inability to talk without sounding like a stilted asshole. Just because somebody talks as if they were raised by speech recognition software doesn’t mean they’re intelligent, mmmkay?
Also, hate, with the heat of a thousand burning suns, the “I really want a baby, so I’m going to fuck some random dude and have his baby in secret” sorts of secret baby plots. Hate. HAAAAAAAATE. What in the hell kind of fucked-up thing is that to do to somebody? It’s not exactly rape, but it’s definitely a violation, and I find it pretty damn repulsive.
So, um, yeah. I realize it’s one of the most beloved books in Romance, and feel free to burn me in effigy for slandering it so, but...Nobody’s Baby But Mine: It makes Candy angry. *turns green, rips shirt, startles coworkers*
My first reaction is that any woman who wants to do it on her own should have her head examined.
Y’know, that’s not my biggest sticking point with secret baby plots at all. If the woman has thought it out carefully and has discussed this reasonably with the father-to-be or opts to use a sperm bank, I say good for her. But heroines who try to use the unaware hero as some sort of ambulatory sperm bank tend to be viewed much less charitably by myself, because like I said, that shit’s straight-up repulsive in real life and in fiction.
I can also dig it if she’s unexpectedly pregnant and unable to contact the father, or the father should not be contacted for compelling reasons. It’s when she DOESN’T think at all about the consequences that I start contemplating throwing pieces of day-old clue-cake at her. (Everybody, baked goods have made it into the conversation! Drink up!) I can understand the initial panic after finding out and doing something stupid. But dude. It’s not like you have a span of days between finding out you’re pregnant and giving birth. You have MONTHS. And thinking about how to sort things out with the father should be at least one of the priorities, yeah?
Just touching on Candy’s point, backed up by SandyW, re: the stigma attached to child welfare payments. I’m starting to think this is very much culturally rather than universally male.
Oh, yes, sorry I didn’t make it more clear in my article. I certainly meant cultural stigma, and not men acting like assholes because of their Universal Maleness (which is not the sort of assertion I buy into, anyway--barring pathology, people act like assholes because they were raised to be assholes, or because their culture and existing power structure tells them it’s OK to act like an asshole under certain circumstances or about certain things; their bits have very little to do with things).
Karmyn said on...Mind if I rant a bit about the men complaining about child support? There is a man in my town who is constantly ranting and protesting about how unfair the system is because mothers are favored in granting custody and the fathers are seen as wallets with little visitation. He has a valid point, but I think he is going about it the wrong way. I have personally seen the man ignoring his children while he has them for visitation. He had them at the library and they were running wild while he was on the computer. He even ignored them when they tried to talk to him. I’m sure the judge had a good reason for giving custody to the mother.
Another rant. My aunt and her husband divorced eight years ago. At the time only their youngest son was under 18. My aunt was given primary custody. I don’t know how much monthly child support was as her now ex has not always had a steady job. At one time he was not working and she had him put in jail for non payment of support. Now he has to pay child support for six months after the child turns 18 in August to make up for when he was in jail and couldn’t pay. The really sad thing is, she really doesn’t take care of him either. Most of the time she didn’t even know if he was going to school. He has at times lived with his brother and sister, who wanted their mom to pay them support while he was living with them. She refused.
As for the secret baby plot, 99.9% of the time they just don’t make sense. In a historical, yes, it is plausible. I’ve seen it work. Mary Balogh had a book where the herione had given birth out of wedlock to a child that died and afterward pretended to be a widow.
This is one of the reasons I don’t read many catagories anymore. They all seem to be The Cowboy P.I’s secret amnesiac Navy Seal baby.
Cara said on...My momma always said: You play, you PAY! She meant by having a kid, but now its more literal than that.
My ex pays minimal child support, but then again hes not an ogre. He just didn’t make as much money as I did, so I didn’t see any reason to take him to the cleaners. Now, I’m a stay at home (kind of working but not for as much money) mom and my husband knows I’m taking his ass to the cleaners if we ever split.
Everyone has a different agenda, but my personal bullshit tolerance with my reading is really low! I can’t think of a secret baby contemporary that I’ve read. Avoid it like the plague.
Oops, thought of one. A recent Judith McNaught with the BIG WTF ending, last quarter of the book, whatever, anyways it had the secret baby/kidnapping thing. Did I already say WTF? I had no idea it was coming and was ticked when I finished it.
It wasn’t the Thorn Birds. I know I watched that miniseries, but I can’t remember it at all. I believe John Ritter played the priest. In fact, it was the short-lived TV show “Family Law.” (Thank you IMDB). But maybe they cribbed it from Thorn Birds. I don’t remember. I just remember it worked when most times, those stories just don’t. FOR ME. But they do for A LOT of readers or they wouldn’t sell so well.
If there is anything that makes me so so so very happy in this conversation is that I am a Gay man.
Thank god for homosexual lack of biological mishaps and the simple requirements for careful thought and moving to a state that provides opportunity and financial planning.
Anyway, I honestly think on this whole stigma around the pay to play part that, yeah there are lots of jerky men but I give equal time to lots of jerky women.
My own brother took custody of his kid from his girlfriend that she insisted on having despite her lack of a job or skills and never once asked for child support from her but the minute she took custody later. Oh yeah baby!
She wanted to stay at home and my own mother was horrified at her, like WTF? She felt the young lady needed to figure out the reality of present day life before taking responsibility for a kid and living off someone else’s hard work to do so. My mother always felt that was a horrible example to set for your children.
I grew up in a house where my mother refused to stay home and she made far more money than my dad ever did. It was her down payment that paid for our first house. She bought her own fancy cars and her own designer dresses.
She was a very successful and damn smart paralegal that was offered more than once a chance to go to law school from the lawyers she worked for.
She, in High School, was offered college scholarships where my dad her sweetheart decided to join the Army to be a jeep mechanic. She must have really loved that man, well I know she did she married him and turned down the offers.
She was a highly intelligent woman who more than once threatened my thick headed father that she would leave take the three boys and head the fuck out if he did not straighten up his act. She may have been 5/4 to his 6/2 but oh man, he never crossed her, not once, without knowing the danger of such an act. He would get angry if ever one of us boys back talked to her.
I would not call her a complete feminist she was very traditional in a lot of ways but as I got older and we became good friends and confidants she on several occasions said she would never ever depend on some man to provide for her or her kids.
I guess I just have a hard time thinking of any woman as helpless or incapable of making it on her own. When it comes to some of these things I hear over child support difficulties, well that implication sort of bothers me frankly.
I do believe both parties should take responsibility equally. Am I wrong in thinking though that there are unrealistic preconceptions in this argument though on both sides?
Candy said, “But heroines who try to use the unaware hero as some sort of ambulatory sperm bank tend to be viewed much less charitably by myself, because like I said, that shit’s straight-up repulsive in real life and in fiction.”
How sad is it that I know a woman, with a Masters no less, who has tried to do this? And how much more sad that her reasoning is, “I’m PERFECT for him! He’ll *have* to see that once I’m pregnant with HIS baby!”
I can only be grateful, for the potential kid’s sake, that she hasn’t succeeded--so far.
Jen said on...What I don’t get about the men complaing about child support thing is...do they think the mom is only spending their money? I mean, do they think she’s pocketing her paycheck and she and the kid are partying it up on whatever he’s paying them? Kids are hella expensive, and to the best of my knowledge, child support payments are just that, support. In addition to everything else you’re already spending. I find it so strange…
provided58. hee.
TeddyPig: yes, people can be assholes in all directions.
Gawdz, this topic depresses me. I need a HEA romance, stat.
I agree with you Teddy Pig, there are crappy women. There are crappy men but thats also where the phrase Too Stupid to Breed came from in the first place!
And I have seen women abuse child support, so that does sometimes happen. Just like sometimes men don’t pay it. It is definitely a 2 way street.
Saddest thing I ever heard: male coworkers standing around; one gripes that his kid wants a bicycle. “No way I’m sending that bitch money.” Rest of men nod, slap his back, chorus “Bitch!”
Me, thinking he may have reason for his ‘tude: “Why not bypass the mother and buy the bike yourself?”
Him: “FUCK no! I bet he doesn’t even need a bike!”
Greek chorus: “Yeah!” “Bitch!”, more slaps on back.
Next saddest: female friend: “I’ve been dating him for a few weeks, don’t know him that well, but I’m ready.”
Me, thinking this sounds ominous: “Ready to… fuck him six ways to Friday? Call him an official boyfriend? Introduce him to the parents? Declare love? Move in? How crazy is this gonna be?”
She: “I stopped taking the Pill last week. Don’t tell him.”
Me: Blood pressure rising dangerously.
So many kinds of assholes in the world. And a lot of them seem like rational, ethical people as friends or at work. Then you see them in a Relationship and realize they too can be the debil.
Whee. I’m gonna go read something happy. Something with an improbably perfect h/h.
I’m feeling bad about defending secret baby plotlines now. The truth is that I never liked them THAT much but the odd one is ok. The comments in this thread about child maintenance issues have been pretty chastening. I think you’ve all cured me. The thought of reading another secret baby romance leaves me feeling dirty and soiled. (Mmmmm)
It seems to me that this is actually a pretty serious website masquerading as something flippant. First the article the other day about sheikh-romance (that developed into quite a debate) and now this. You’re like a Loretta Chase novel, Bitches. There might be a writhing beefcake on the front cover but it’s all surprisingly thoughtful inside....
Candy, thanks for the link to that fascinating article. That was really, really interesting and I’ve forwarded it on--something I never do. (Unless it’s Carrot Top, and then all bets are off, foward-wise.)
I’m very fortunate that my ex has never once griped about the child support. When he got a better job, he--not I--initiated the process to raise the support amount. He loves the kids and while he wasn’t a good husband, he’s a good father. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
But it does make me want to tear faces off and shove them up asses when I hear people--men and women alike--complaining about paying child support. A coworker once left her husband and daughter to get with this other, much wealthier, man, and the litany of complaints about how much her child support payments were never stopped. I actually had to tell her that I didn’t want to hear it anymore because it made me sick listening to her complain about having to buy her daughter a cap and gown for high school graduation… that was a tense day at work.
And yes, I need some HEA now. Or some cover snark. Or both! Let’s see a good book with a horrid cover to satisfy both needs…
skyerae said on...I live in Canada so there are quite a few differences in terms of the “system”. There’s been a recen trend to grant custody to the parent most willing to grant generous access. Not the parent who may be the better caregiver but deny access. It’s been shown that kids benefit from being with the parent who will allow access without spite than from just one who won’t. So between poor mother and dictatorial rich father the mother would likey win if she was willing to grant generous access.
I come from a matriarchal society and an extended family that takes care of it’s own. The women hold the power in my family. The times men have tried to take over only bad things have happened. Where I come from women hold the power because they hold the future. It has nothing to do with feminism.
I’m of the opinion that children belong to their mothers. Mothers are meant to mother that is just the way it is. While there are exceptions, most of the time this is the way it is, the way it always was. Biologically women are designed to carry deliver and raise children. Physically, mentally and emotionally. No amount of societal change especially change that spans less then a century can change nature. It takes 5000 years for a human beings biochemistry to change and we’re more than 4800 years away from that. If society has changed the ability of a woman to mother her children safely then society has to accept responsibility to do so instead of loading the fathers back with it. I’m well aware of the possible backlash I could get from this statement but I don’t care. The idea that men and women together are responsible for their children instead of just the mother is relatively new. Nature is nature and instinct is instinct and society has fucked with it. I want to stay home with my children, I spent three years supporting my husband and putting off kids so he could build a business that will support us. I couldn’t bear to have some stranger who legally isn’t even allowed to discipline my kids in charge of half or more of their day. School will be hard enough. Recent studies have shown there’s a marked difference in the behaviour of kids who go to daycare and kids who stay at home.
Besides all that, as to secret baby stories, I occasionally like them. I also need a good reason for the the heroine to have kept it to herself and her thinking the hero is an ass doesn’t count. It’s one of those plots that requires care and finesse and is rarely done well. But, I have seen it done well. I remember one where the heroine tried to get a hold of her one-night stand and couldn’t. I think he was out of the country and his phone was disconnected or something. Anyway when they bumped into eachother again she wasn’t a ho about it, just very firm about being the primary caregiver.
I do agree with the stigma of asking for child support. I don’t think it’s a good thing because support can be important. I remember one point when I was a kid that we paid rent off that $600 and ate canned food and powdered milk. Mothers should be able to ask and get help if they need it. I just think it’s an issue that has too much gray area because every circumstance is different. I had one scare out of high school that I wouldn’t have told my ex until after our break up was well established. The relationship was not worth pursuing for the sake of a baby. It was a false alarm and a good thing too because that would have been even worse if I had told him about it and been wrong.
Ack, this was way longer than I expected. Sorry about the typoes, I just bought a new keyboard and haven’t broken it in yet.
Verword: progress44 It actually knows…
Joanna, I think you’re right… there are some damn smart bitches on this site and I love the comments where debates pop up. I learn a lot here, and not just about mantitty.
I do find it really interesting how some people love certain genres because they can suspend disbelief and go with it (sheik romances, which I’ll admit to enjoying from time to time) while they absolutely cannot leave their own baggage at the door for others (again with me as the example, secret babies).
Gwynnyd said on...The best ‘secret baby’ book EVER has to be Sheila Bishop’s “A Speaking Likeness”. It’s an ancient Regency, 1976 copyright, but delicious. Definitely on my keeper shelf.
Late 20-ish new widow with young child finds a rich-looking teenage girl having a baby on the doorstep of her London lodgings and takes her in. She refuses to name the baby’s father or even talk about the family she has disgraced. A week or so later, the girl runs away and gets help from a man the widow thinks is the baby’s father. He makes arrangements to have the widow adopt the baby boy and pass it off as her own, for a substantial financial consideration, of course.
After a few years, the widow is receiving unwanted attentions from a suitor and appeals to her solicitor to find her a place to get away to for awhile. He arrnages for her to visit his sister who is the housekeeper at Brandon Castle. Once there, she discovers that the baby boy she adopted is the spitting image of the heir to the castle, the previously-unwed teenage-mother is a daughter of the house, and the widow is accused of thrusting herself and her bastard child on the lord of the estate - who is the man she thought was the baby’s father.
The characters are fully realized and all behave believably, the history has no really obvious howlers, the writing is well done and very smooth, the plot twists are eyebrow raising, and the resolution is satisfactory.
I think that in society in general, the women that seek help or refuse help from their child(ren)’s father(s) are only seen as villians
Elizabeth Hurley and her attempts (which finally succeeded) to get Stephen Bing to accept that he was the father of her child now comes to mind whenever I think of the secret baby plot. Because my recollection is that, at first, the media portrayal of Liz (yes, let’s cut out some syllables and just call her Liz) was that she was the money-grubbing h00r out to take Stephen’s bank account for a ride. Then, when the tests came back positive and she was vindicated, he offered up lots of cash and her response was that she intended to set that money aside and not touch it while she raised the child and made some comment of disdain about how Stephen Bing would go and offer up money when what all she really wanted was for this child to know his father.
These elements played out in real life made me think that all these secret baby plots might actually have some basis in reality as respects human psychology.
And going off topic a touch, but I think it’s involved in the mix in some fashion, I think recent changes in attitudes as respects a woman’s right to choose and a man’s right to know, not to mention DNA testing, make it even touchier to put forth the secret baby plot these days. Like you, Candy, that opener to Nobody’s Baby But Mine had me utterly appalled; it’s a morally reprehensible thing for a woman to do (not to mention downright selfish) and it had me considering some serious book mutilation to express my disgust. But then it got to Cal’s reaction and I liked how SEP allowed him to be furious about it and allowed him to react to it in a way that I can imagine some men would actually react (or at least want to react). That helped demonstrate just why the whole secret baby notion is utterly ridiculous; without that there would’ve been no way I’d’ve finished that book or have read any other SEP book ever, ever again.
As with the sheikh fantasy, I think it’s really difficult to do a secret baby plot successfully because people are just to aware of how things work in reality. It’s easier to suspend disbelief and go with a vampire plot these days than suspend it for a secret baby. Though of course, like with me reading nearly all of Lynne Graham’s books, sometimes it is possible to get an audience to say to themselves, “This is in no way related to how the real world works and by all rights this should bug the crap out of me, but what the hey, let’s read it anyway!” It’s kind of sad to think there’s a significant portion of an industry devoted to producing “what the hey” entertainment, but there you go.
bookworm said on...Secret baby plotlines, for the most part, totally suck. But why, why, why are they so popular? Standing in the K-mart in front of a full shelf of Harlequin Presents Baby Daddy books one day got me thinking. Romance is fantasy, right? And what could be more fantastic than said baby daddy tracking down mom and junior, insist on being involved, insisit on child support, often insist on marriage, and a two parent family. Could their popularity be due to the fact that such a baby daddy is the ultimate fantasy when compared to reality - see stats on single moms, deadbeat dads, etc.? If not this, then why, why, why does Harlequin continue to pump out this bilge? Fellow bitches, I seek to understand, help me.
L violet said on...What’s the psychology behind women gobbling up baby stories? Is it like men and submarine stories?
What nauseates me about secret baby stories is just the general ickiness of women being obsessed with babies. I love and like my own kids, and the grandkids are delightful in every way. But I never was one to go all reverent and misty-eyed over babies.
No ill will to babies or the women who find them fascinating--in RL and as plot devices--but it strikes me as suffocatingly overly hormonal.
yes, spamblocker, I _am_ “outside35”.
Are there any secret baby stories where the biological father of the child is not the hero? I could totally see a story where a woman keeps a baby from an asshat. He could figure in the story as an antagonist.
(I imagine someone’s going to come up with a book that has this plot, but the hero is the brother of the asshat, and so when he marries the heroine and adopts the baby, this kid literally has a father and uncle who are the same man. Which in the scenario isn’t icky, but sounds all Deliverance-y.)
(Yes, I am overworked and free-associating big time.)
Here in the real world, I can think of plenty of reasons to keep a baby secret, and while some of them are selfish, they’re not beyond the realm of sense. Frex, an abused wife discovers she’s pregnant, and that gives her the strength to leave. As long as the writer doesn’t try to make the biological father the “hero” in this story, it can be a viable scenario.
>>‘the general ickiness of women being obsessed with babies’
Hear hear, here!! I’m suffering through several friends going onnn and onnn about babies and the sacred state of MOtherness. Not all of us want to give up our selfhood, live for our wee ones to the point of obsession, and view ourselves exclusively through the lens of motherhood (one of them changed her email to (not this exactly) MotherTo2@ as if she no longer has a NAME!)
I imagine someone’s going to come up with a book that has this plot, but the hero is the brother of the asshat, and so when he marries the heroine and adopts the baby, this kid literally has a father and uncle who are the same man.
Jo Beverley, An Arranged Marriage? No, I think the brother raped her but didn’t get her preggers. Or her own brother… no, her own brother arranged for the duke’s brother to rape… uh.
Candy, I just had to review this one book, The Continuity Girl, which features the heroine, after turning 35 and realizing that HER EGGS R ROTTINGZ, hauling off to another country to get knocked up by some random guy so she can have a baby. Hell, that’s what (her crazy) mom did, after all…
The ironic thing is that despite (a) the heroine learning that screwing random dudes that may turn out to be sickos or alcoholic gay falconers isn’t the best idea, and (b) she actually does get involved/knocked up by someone who’d want to be a father (though it’s a Miracle Pregnancy, don’t even get me started on THAT plot point that I LOATHE), she’s making a documentary about “sperm bandits” and how great that is by the end of the book.
I so wanted to slam my head against the wall. ARGH!
DS said on...Secret babies in real life-- actually they were twins. The father was a bad ass drug dealerto whom she was married. She fled when she found out she was pregnant. He went to jail then went legit. When the boys were 16 she decided to ask for support.
She had a good reason. He screamed to high heaven, but ultimately had to pay up. No HEA though.
Deep Dickens for Esther said on...1. I’m with Candy on the tricking a guy into getting you preggers is dispicable and unforgiveable and renders a heroine unworthy of an HEA front.
One minor exception: One of my cousins “accidentally” got pregnant three times, against her husband’s wishes. The first few times I felt horrible for the poor guy. by the third pregnancy, I started thinking “really buddy, you can’t afford to be too proud to get a vasectomy at this point.” Felt a lot less sorry for him at that point. What’s that saying?...fool me once…
2. I also second L violet in wondering what’s up with the baby obsession in romancelandia? Personally, I’m not a baby person. I hatez me some babies. No disrespect to ladies who lurve the babies, they’re just not my thing. Hence, I am often left with the major squicks at the end of my romances when the heroine finds fulfillment, not really in her relationship with the hero, but in the having of the babies. Ick.
But maybe that’s just me...(someone has to be buying all these secret baby books, right?)
3. >>all I want her to do is make her figure out some sort of equitable paternity arrangement with the hero.<<
You might be a lawyer if...you read a secret baby plot and your first thought is that the heroine should be encouraged to work out an equitable paternity arrangement with the hero.
Oops, thought of one. A recent Judith McNaught with the BIG WTF ending, last quarter of the book, whatever, anyways it had the secret baby/kidnapping thing. Did I already say WTF? I had no idea it was coming and was ticked when I finished it.
Every Breath You Take. JM lost me after that book because the BIG MISUNDERSTANDING that led to the baby becoming a secret made me want to bitch-slap both the hero and the heroine.
An allegedly smart woman wants to have a less-than-smart baby and tries to fuck somebody stupid to effect this.
Aren’t you glad fictional characters can’t procreate?
Estelle Chauvelin said on...The idea that men and women together are responsible for their children instead of just the mother is relatively new.
Well, it might have been the mother doing the “mothering” (or the wet nurse), but in Classical Rome, if a couple with children divorced, they went to the father’s family. Period. Because beside him being the pater familias, the understanding of reproduction at the time didn’t include the idea of ova. They thought sexual reproduction was equivalent to agriculture: so the quality of the “ground” in which the “seed” was planted affected how it turned out, but it was really the seed that grew. So if by “responsible,” you mean “involved with taking care of them in a two-parent household where they weren’t being raised by servants,” you’ve got a point. But if you mean “legally entitled to/responsible for them,” you’re wrong.
The only books I’ve read that come close to being secret babies are fantasies. In one, the baby really only stays secret through the pregnancy: the father’s already not going to be in their life, or so the mother thinks, he’s not an easy guy to contact, and she tells him the first time she sees him after the baby is born. The others are all Arthurian (see: Mordred).
Reading this thread, I’m starting to long for Secret Abortion Romances. But I’m evil.
I am often left with the major squicks at the end of my romances when the heroine finds fulfillment, not really in her relationship with the hero, but in the having of the babies.
^^Bolding mine.
oooooooh yesssssss. That’s the number one reason I wallbang a book. The sudden madonna-like contentment with her life… She’s all “fulfilled” cuz she’s full of baby. Bait and switch, sez I! Here I’ve been rooting for the h/h, and now she’s all about the bebes.
Other bait-and-switch HEAs chap my ass too. I hate when I’ve bought into the kind of relationship the h/h have, and suddenly there’s a twee ending that doesn’t fit them. In the last 5 pages they get uptight (no mo buttsecks! we’re respectable now!), abandon a career that matters to them her, decide to move out to the ‘burbs or the country or… WTF!!!
Jennifer Crusie avoided that false HEA in Bet Me: Min and Cal stay themselves: they don’t want kids, don’t move out to the ‘burbs, don’t forgive their in-laws. Breath of fresh air.
I don’t read too many “secret baby” plots--I too am not a fan of the babies.
But I do religiously read me some Harlequin Presents, and the secret baby comes up often there.
What irrates me most is the “young virgin secretary has an affair with the boss, he breaks up/fires her, she finds out she’s pregnant and tries to contact him but is unable to for various reasons, and she goes off on her own to raise the baby. Then something serious happens--one version someone is threating to kidnap the baby because they know who the father is, another has the kid have a serious medical problem that she can’t afford treatment for--and she returns to the daddy, asking for support. Of course the daddy doesn’t believe the baby exists, and intrigued by why she would come to him for cash, agrees to give her what she’s asked for in exchange for whoring herself to him for a specified time period. She agrees for the sake of her child, but when she calles the roommate to check on the child, the daddy gets all pissed off as if she’s calling a boyfriend. When he finally believes the baby is his, he gets all mad that she didn’t call him before, even though he’d instructed his new secretary not to let any calls/messages through. And they live happy ever after.”
Dumbest plot ever. Seriously. But, the secret baby almost works there. Almost. Because most of these are current, and I’m always screaming in my head “hello! DNA test! look at Scary Spice and Eddie Murphy!”
The only contemporary setting secret baby book I enjoyed was Fancy Pants by SEP. I understood Francesca’s reasons for not telling Dallie about the pregnancy, even if it may not have been the best decision for Dallie or the child.
Having said that, I cannot imagine buying any book because it has “secret baby” in the title.
Okay, you’ve all forced me out of the closet.
A secret-baby plot, done well, can be very angsty and moving. I LIKE ‘EM if they’re done well. Background story and character motivation are everything, of course. Without believability, such plots are just plain lame and laughable...as are all plots.
I don’t quite understand why this particular storyline has fallen out of favor, and yet infinitely more absurd crap is wildly popular.
Arethusa said on...I don’t know if we can go by this comment thread to conclude that anything has fallen out of favour. I’m pretty sure Harlequin wouldn’t be publishing all those secret baby books if they weren’t selling.
sallahdog said on...I feel like a member of AA.. I too am a secret, secret baby fan…
Not so much of the Harlequin Presents books (too simplistic), but looking through my keeper pile I found several secret baby books that are in my faves..
I can even agree that “Nobodies Baby but Mine” has an idiotic premise… but I love it anyway.. Rachel Gibsons books have had some secret babies in them also, and I love those too..
I feel so dirty now.
I feel like a member of AA
Aren’t we all.
Pass the crack pipe.
Robin said on...I have an impression that most unmarried women who pursue paternity payments from the father of their child are often viewed with a jaundiced eye--not quite money-grubbing whores, but there’s a distinct “Oh, she trapped him into it” feel to the whole business. Not only that, there’s a certain value placed on doing things the hard way--even when it’s subjecting the person to needless difficulty--that often lends a sheen of nobility to that sort of enterprise.
You know, what’s interesting, Candy, is the way the legal system has adapted rather quickly (although one could argue this is just another paternalistic manifestation) to the reality of children born of unmarried parents, both through the Uniform Parentage Act and through various state statutes and case law, to erase the stigma of “illegitimacy” from these children and from a common law system that treated children born to married parents as legitimate (whether the husband fathered the child or not) and children born outside of marriage as illegitimate (unable to inherit, etc.). Further, child support from fathers has become a pretty high legal priority, and custody laws have been liberalized in many states to include non-marital, even non-family members (at least for visitation purposes, and sometimes for custody).
So if the stigma still exists, it may, ironically, be tied up in the same impulse that had catalyzed so many changes in the law—that is, the feeling that children need to be protected (i.e. “the best interest of the child” test). I’m not sure, though, how that stigma plays out in real life as compared to Romance novels.
I most often find secret baby devices to demonstrate a certain selfishness on the part of the mother (was it Judge Judy or Judge Mabeline who always scolds mothers that child support is owed to the child, not the mother). Yet I think the intention is not, really, to emphasize or reinforce freedom for the woman in these stories. Rather, I think the point of these Romances is most often to facilitate a happy reconciliation of the biological family, thus sanctifying it in a roundabout way. Not that I mean to suggest that all secret baby books are reactionary tomes of family values, because the emphasis seems to be on the *happy” family, not simply the family. But since the basic structure of the secret baby plot necessitates a reunion, it does sort of place a certain added emphasis on the importance of the biological family structure, as opposed to the emotional or psychological family we often associate as more in concert with contemporary social realities.
That said, I did enjoy Rachel Gibson’s Daisy’s Back in Town, in part because the babydaddy was so justifiably angry and Gibson didn’t let Daisy totally off the hook (plus the other “father” was not demonized—yeah!). But that book was hardly a progressive feminist manifesto, either.
es, secret baby plots are reunion plots. But nobody mentioned that secret baby plots actually are the main new plot of the late 20th century contemporary romance. You’re all calling them old, but they’re very new. And already passe, according to most of you.
Child support: They need love and money, in that order, and the need is pretty much limitless for both (or at least it seems that way when they’re ragging on you to buy them this and that). So why deny your child either?
But I confess it. I am writing a secret baby story. I promise no one in it will be TSTL or terminally martyred or just so selfish you’d want to slap ‘em silly.
05.24.07 at 03:35 AM |