Basic Trope: Having a baby will solve all your problems.
- 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.
- Downplayed: Alice and Bob are having a few problems in their relationship, which mostly go away after they have a baby.
- 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.
- Alice and Bob's problems are their lack of children and/or the difficulty they have conceiving a baby, despite wanting one, so the news that they'll have a baby put those problems to rest.
- Inverted: Children Are a Waste
- Subverted:
- Alice finds out she's pregnant, and Bob leaves her.
- Neither Alice or Bob are able to handle the responsibilities of parenthood. Bob eventually goes out for cigarettes -and never returns.
- Double Subverted: But then feels guilty and gets back together with her shortly afterward.
- Parodied:
- Instead of sending warplanes dropping bombs, Nation X sends a Delivery Stork to Nation Y, which drops cute babies and brings peace.
- A baby improves everyone's life in really bizarre ways, such as convincing Alice and Bob to abandon their yuppie lifestyle and take up a free-birthing bohemian lifestyle instead.
- Zig Zagged: Some couples find that having a baby makes life better, others find it causes or exacerbates problems.
- 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: The author had children which helped restored their marriage with their spouse, so he wants to write a work to reflect on that.
- Lampshaded: "Bob and I are thinking of having a baby to bring us closer together."
- Invoked:
- Exploited: Alice manages to get Bob to be the person she wants by using their child to back her arguments and demands.
- 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?"
- Implied: Alice and Bob's relationship starts to smooth out with their first child, though the problems shouldn't have been affected by a child.
- 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.
- Having a baby makes the situation worse, but Alice and Bob tough it out and improve themselves anyway.
- Played For Drama: Alice is desperate for Bob's love, and thus he's able to manipulate her into pregnancy whenever he wants. Their children suffer as a result of dealing with parents concerned more with having them than raising them, who are too caught up with solving their problems to properly deal with their children.
Back to Babies Make Everything Better
