I'VE started watching this amazing fantasy series from the mid-90s and early 00s. It's called a friend. It follows a group of humanoid characters who treat childbirth as a social opportunity, wear full postpartum makeup and do not care for the baby. The fantasy elements are very clever – in fact, as myself, I realized it, only now, now, that I'm seeing it decades later.
Perhaps in the 90s, the otherworldly nature of Phoebe Buffai, waiting to give birth to a triplet in a room packed with wise friends' rooms, despite being a high-risk pregnancy. The way Ross Geller's baby Ben was delivered under the sheet by an obstetrician who apparently appears to be working blindly was the famous speculative fiction trope of the time. Perhaps when it first aired, parents were simply amazed at the special effects involved while sitting in a coffee shop, three weeks after Rachel Greene had given birth, with a pair of full makeup and blow dry, high heels, size 10 jeans, and completely without her baby, rumors about her love life, and the special effects involved while sitting in a coffee shop. No matter what was happening, at the time, no one seemed vague in this creepy valley. In this creepy valley, babies are seen by visiting relatives who are breastfed only once in their life, not sick, placed behind glass in hospital nursery, and then having sex in the cupboard.
Luckily, since I was a child, television depictions of birth and parenting have come a long way. And I was even careful with that. For example, we remember a scene from a cold foot where Karen rushes into her husband David's office, demanding that she hire her nanny (the nanny is a big feature of these shows, you'll notice). What I don't remember and only discovered in recent rewatches is that the aforementioned scene shows Karen tearing her hair off the kitchen table. Except that the toddler had a dummy in his mouth, he couldn't fully eat the ridge, even if he wanted it.
This kind of continuity error may seem small to some of you, but it's like an obvious misunderstanding of early parents' lives to think that someone on the writing, director, or production team regularly feeds their children.
In recent years, a number of television shows have exploded that show things a little closer to what is perceived as for pregnancy, birth and toddlers. Some of them actually breastfed their babies crying. Sometimes parents appear tired and are unable to make social arrangements. Sometimes, kids on these shows even have lines.
Today, this is at least part of the time, as I write, direct and produce TV today, I am sure this is at least part of it. And before you say that, yes, I know that Marta Kaufmann created a friend, and I also know that she has three children. But as I have already pointed out, Friends are a fantasy series. It's magical realism. Kaufman knows it, I know it and I'm sure Lisa Kudrow, who was pregnant in season 4, also knows it.
I think that TV drama and comedy needs can make a 20-minute episode showing a woman sitting in a dark room at 3am trying to lead her nipples to the baby's ears, exhausted and she's once again a thread bug. But when Becky Barnicoat's new graphic novel Cry Cry the Baby Cries shows, comedies and dramas involved in pregnancy and parent-child relationships are there with heartbreaking, breathtaking details if they just allow people to show them.
Maybe books have always made it better. Approximately 40 years after they were published, the classic Jill Murphy children's book is five minutes of peace, finally peace, and what's next! Still, talk more directly to the experience of being a parent than the many films and television portrayals we had.
A big lady from five minutes of peace could be an elephant eating a bipedal marmalade living in the suburbs. But she is still a more realistic parent than Rachel Greene.
