Baby Boom (1987)

Baby Boom's Promotional Poster (IMDB)

What would you do if you had it all (including a very hectic career), and suddenly one day a baby dropped in your lap? Would you take the child and care for her, or would you attempt to give the child to an adoption agency and never look back?

That's the question we ask ourselves whilst watching Baby Boom, the 1987 comedy starring Diane Keaton as J.C. Wiatt, a career woman who is married to her job, that takes place during the women's workforce boom when women were finally seen as equals in the business world.

One morning just after J.C. is offered the opportunity to become a partner in her firm, she is awoken in the middle of the night to a call informing her that she has inherited something from a distant relative she'd met "once since 1954" that passed away in an accident. Due to the overseas call, the quality of the connection was poor, leaving J.C unable to find out what the inheritance was- only when she arrived at the airport did she discover that it was the relative's daughter, Elizabeth (played by twins Kristina & Michelle Kennedy).

What I love about this movie is that what J.C goes through is something everyone can relate to - from those childfree by choice to those who have had their first kids (and can relate to the absolute helplessness one can feel when presented with a child for the first time). We get to see how J.C goes through the process of not only learning how to care for a child, but how the bond begins to develop and progress between the two of them. As viewers, we also get to watch as J.C goes through the change from being the "Tiger Lady"(nicknamed after her aggressive style of work) and childfree by choice to a softer and more motherly role of which she puts Elizabeth first- a change that most parents go through after having (or adopting) a little one.

Baby Boom is one of those movies that is both timeless and can be enjoyed over and over again that highlights the beautiful bond between a parent and child.