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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hollie Richardson

Keeping mum: TV’s problem with women who don’t want kids

No kidding … Natasha (Michelle de Swarte) unexpectedly becomes a mum in Sky Atlantic’s The Baby
No kidding … Natasha (Michelle de Swarte) unexpectedly becomes a mum in Sky Atlantic’s The Baby. Photograph: Sky UK/© Sky UK Limited

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.

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