Where are my fictional parents of babies along for the ride?

October 3, 2024 8:01 AM

I'm reading "A Half-Built Garden", and as a fellow baby parent it's so much fun to read about Judy simultaneously conducting interplanetary negotiations and tending a wiggly little almost-crawler. Partway through, the baby-wearing protagonist remarks on the dearth of early motherhood perspectives in fiction. But maybe you can help?

Fiction is probably primarily what I'm after since this particular narrative is made possible by some reasonably radical co-parenting/societal support plus aliens who turn out to afford very high status to mothers of young children. But I'm not opposed to nonfiction, so long as the story is about someone with a realistic baby in tow on an adventure, rather than primarily *about* the mental and physical experience of caring for a baby.

The only other example I've been able to think of is "Fate of the Furious" with Toretto's baby sliding around a crashing airplane in his carseat, but I'd love more fully-realized baby characters and caretaking relationships!

posted by heyforfour to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

TV Tropes has The Parent Trope, including

• Action Mom
• Badass and Child Duo
• Badass and Baby
• Mama Bear
• Papa Wolf (which is how they've classified The Fate of the Furious)

posted by zamboni at 8:15 AM on October 3

Laura's Lippman's Tess Monaghan series have her becoming a mom and balancing her usual detectiving and also parenting. The short story The Book Thing from Seasonal Work heavily features this as a theme, with some literal "along for the ride" stuff although with a slightly older child, not an infant. Hush Hush, which is a novel, also has some of this although not to the same degree and the child is solidly a toddler at this point.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 9:00 AM on October 3

The babies are maybe not as central as you'd hope, but the Finlay Donovan books by Elle Cosimano have a divorced mother with two young kids who is sort of half detective half contract killer (except the last half only by accident) and there are plenty of diaper changes and instances where she has to find a babysitter so she can go meet up with a mob boss or something.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:02 AM on October 3

They carry a baby around in comedy movie The Hangover.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:33 AM on October 3

And Willow (the more fun LOTR movie). I think Willow is a better movie because he's held back by protecting a baby if I may editorialize.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:06 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]

Saga (first issue free to read here) is a fantasy/sci-fi comic that starts with a baby being born to parents who are on the run from their respective governments and so have no choice but to bring her along on their adventures; there's magic and robots with tv heads but all the baby stuff is pretty grounded.
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 10:55 AM on October 3 [2 favorites]

I believe one of the protagonists of Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring has an infant — she’s famous for the writing advice that a nursing baby or a dog will prevent your plot from becoming too predictable.
posted by elanid at 12:01 PM on October 3

The Family Plan was an enjoyable 'retired secret agent forced to come out of retirement' movie, starring Mark Wahlberg which includes a baby + older kids (and at least one action scene with baby in carrier)
posted by TwoWordReview at 1:02 PM on October 3 [1 favorite]

Ayelet Waldman’s Mommy Track Mysteries might fit the bill. They are a lot less dippy than the covers suggest.
posted by corey flood at 8:59 PM on October 3

When I can get a break from raising my own toddler I've been reading Elly Griffith's Ruth Galloway series. They are good cozy mysteries featuring a forensic anthropologist. In Book 3 she gives birth, and at least through Book 5 (as far as I've gotten, there are 15) they do a good job of depicting the adventures of raising a young child alongside the main murder-solving plotline.
posted by Tsuga at 11:12 PM on October 3 [1 favorite]