Nearly 25 years after Sex and the City, TV still has a hard time accepting child-free women. Post-Roe v Wade, that needs to change
Expecting a friend to be engrossed in a silly anecdote you’re bursting to share while they’ve got a baby in their hands is futile. The realisation that they’re more interested in whether their new child has pooped, rather than hearing a trivial tale “about last night”, can leave an irritating sting, or even a hurtful bruise. Is this the end of how the friendship was? Has everything changed?
Natasha (Michelle de Swarte) captures this in the opening scene of Sky Atlantic’s horror-comedy-drama The Baby. “Is it better than before you had a kid?” she frustratedly jibes her new-mum friend, Mags (Shvorne Marks), at poker night after being repeatedly ignored for the baby. “I’m sorry, am I being rude? Shall we go back to pretending we’re hanging out?” The conversation takes an even more awkward turn when their other friend, Rita (Isy Suttie), nervously announces she’s pregnant.
