Once upon a time, there was a character named Robin Scherbatsky on a sitcom called How I Met Your Mother. Robin was different from a lot of female characters people saw on television. She didn’t want to get married or have children. She considered her career as a journalist of paramount importance. She valued her independence and friendships above romance. While she did want a romantic relationship, she didn’t want the same kind of relationship that her friends Marshall and Lily had.
Above all, Robin wanted her life to be an adventure.
Now, in 2011, Robin is on the way to having her dream job, in a serious researcher position at a news organization she always wanted to work for. But we’d never know it, because the only time we ever see her at work is when she’s stewing in jealousy about Barney’s relationship with Nora. And even though she has a great job and finally seems to be on the career path she’s always wanted for herself, she describes herself as a “complete mess.” She’s so insecure, in fact, that she’s willing to stay in a relationship with a guy that she doesn’t love, rather than the guy she wanted so badly that she pathetically pined for him under her desk at work, simply because she wants to BE loved.
And last night, she dropped the bomb onto Barney’s head: she’s pregnant.
Can I count the number of reasons why that storyline bothers the crap out of me? Let me try:
1) It would appear that condoms are approximately 50% less effective on television shows than they are in real life.
2) I imagine that the show is setting up a minor “who’s the father?” mystery. Is it Barney, the other contracted character on the show who has been set up multiple times as Robin’s ideal partner? Or is it Kevin, the new character played by the guest star who’s likely contracted to just a handful of episodes? GEE, I WONDER.
3) If Kevin is the father, then the storyline is at a dead end. It will either be a false alarm or end in a miscarriage. I don’t see the point of making Robin have a miscarriage, and a false alarm has no story potential.
4) Robin, as written so far, would definitely have an abortion if she got pregnant. There’s no way the show is going down that route. Of course, I also think Robin as written would be more careful with contraceptives in the first place, but I guess that’s a moot point now.
5) I think I can see where this storyline is going. I think I finally understand why Robin has been so insecure and irrational lately. See, she finally has the career that she’s always wanted, but there’s something still missing from her life. She’s finally realized that having a career and good friends and adventure isn’t enough. She wants something better, something more. And this unexpected pregnancy will turn out to be a wonderful blessing that will lead to her marrying Barney and finally discovering what truly matters in life and whoooooooops I just barfed all over my keyboard.
Clearly, all that stuff Robin once said about Marshall being a “love snob,” and proclaiming that there are many different ways of being in love, was all just an insecure girl fronting because she didn’t have what Marshall and Lily have. Clearly, the relationship between Marshall and Lily (and Ted and Your Mother) is truly the only way to be in love after all: marriage and babies ahoy! And people who proclaim that they’re not interested in marriage and children really just aren’t ready for it.
Thanks, How I Met Your Mother writers. Thanks for degrading an independent female character to a hot mess of insecurities who doesn’t know what she wants anymore. I thought we were – heavens forbid! – finally have a female character on a network sitcom stick to her decision not to have children, but now I don’t have to worry anymore. Yay.
(Though, I suppose it isn’t quite fair of me to call this post How I Met Your Heteronormativity, as we also see Barney’s brother James in a committed, married relationship with kids. Even though you seem to think that the “marriage n kids” formula is the only way to have a meaningful romantic relationship, you at least allow same-sex couples that same rigidity.)
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Having kids CAN be the greatest adventure – jus’ sayin’
It can be, but it’s not for everyone, and every time I turn around I see another story that implies it’s the ONLY great adventure for people (especially women) to have.
I should probably not comment since I don’t watch the show so much as follow it at a meta-textual distance.
I read your comments at SF about how it would be nice to have a female character who doesn’t want want kids/husband, and was going to suggest you rent or stream Remington Steele! Of course I know you meant a female character that didn’t exist over 20 years in *the past*. I don’t know that Laura Holt ever explicitly said no kids no husband, but she lived the dream for the duration.
>>and a false alarm has no story potential.<<
I actually think a false alarm is decent one episode story, as long as it does stay focused on Robin and where she's at with her life and goals. Depending on you're contraceptive method, false alarms DO happen, a decent amount. I would think there is an opportunity to play with how much Robin has and hasn't changed since she told Ted that Marshall/Lily's life is not what she wanted.
Being faced with an unplanned pregnancy is a fairly dramatic thing. It's not *comedic* though which is why it's a strange decision for a sitcom to go there. Tonally this show doesn't seem like MASH or Roseanne, shows that were laced with dramatic/serious settings and premises (war, the travails of the working class), and I'm not sure this show needs that big serious drama episode. But I do think it can be done and has been done by sitcoms through history.
I haven’t seen Remington Steele but that does sound like a ringing endorsement. I’ll have to check it out.
I like your idea of Robin’s false alarm making her look at her life and her choices, but I very strongly suspect that the show is NOT going in that direction, and I just find it depressing.
Just wanted to say that I discovered your blog some weeks back and have been slowly making my way backwards to the beginning. Tonight I finished reading the entire thing!
I find it funny and thought-provoking and am amazed by how you like virtually all the same movies, books and TV as I do (although I’ve never seen Community, will definitely be checking that out).
Keep up the good work.
Yay, thanks for commenting! I’m also thrilled at another potential Community viewer. Let me know what you think of the show.
I honestly didn’t think about it that way before. This is the second blog I’ve read on how I met your mother (on this site). Both have been interesting and insightful and I can’t wait to read more.
*bookmarks this site for much future reading*
Thanks for the supportive words. Hope you enjoy!
Over a year after I started reading your blog I can confirm, that yes I did (and do) very much enjoy 🙂
I’m confused by the portrayal of Robin in this season. She does seem way, way more insecure than before and I don’t feel like we’ve been given a reason why.
I don’t particularly mind the idea of a character that isn’t interested in children or marriage but then changes their mind – I think that’s fairly common in real life. But I would like to actually see that change happen over time, not as the result of an unplanned pregnancy, because I’m not really buying it.
I’d be interested to know your take on this week’s episode where Robin processes not being able to have children. I had a couple of reactions – the first was that the writers felt it necessary to reassure the audience, via Ted, that “Robin was never alone” – ie, as though not having children means there is a risk of being “alone” forever.
I did like the way Robin has complex feelings about having children – as a woman who doesn’t particularly want them, I imagine I too would feel sad if I knew I couldn’t.
But overall I feel like this storyline fits well with HIMYM’s obsessive reinforcement of the ideal in life being married and having kids.
I had a couple of reactions – the first was that the writers felt it necessary to reassure the audience, via Ted, that “Robin was never alone” – ie, as though not having children means there is a risk of being “alone” forever.
That really, really bothered me. It put a damper on an episode that I wanted to appreciate as reaffirming Robin’s desire to remain childfree.
Yeah, I think this is a really interesting question in our culture for women and maybe even men choosing to not have children. I think there is a fear in our culture of nuclear families that to not have children means to “end up alone” – even if you do decide to get married (for a person like me who is not even sure she wants to be in a long term relationship, the question goes even deeper). I know I have an unexamined assumption that I will be alone in some way if I choose not to marry and have children. I think this is a fear that is both maintained and supported by the ideology of nuclear family in our culture. HIMYM, although I do love it, feels like it REALLY FRUSTRATINGLY reinforces this. The reason I LOVE this show is b/c it is about people who are forming non-nuclear family relationships – even Lilly and Marshall’s relationship is deeply embedded within their community, to the point where they even lived with Ted as a married couple for a while. And then there are these moments where they say things like “Kids, we drifted apart over the years, but we always got to together for mexican wrestling/thanksgiving, etc.” I hate the way this reinforces the idea that at some magical arbitrary age friends MUST drift apart. I always wonder – well, who were they making friends with/spending time with after they drifted apart? Why start all over again just b/c you got married/had kids – why not keep your same friends? This season, with M & L wanting to move to suburbia, I feel like this “drift” looming for the crew and it makes me feel sad – and yet no one except Barney seems to be honest about this (although Robin touches on it when she thinks she is pregnant, and acknowledges she needs help from her community). I liked in the mexican wrestling episode where he is like “I don’t want you to have a baby. I want you love me more than the baby.” I know this is supposed to make him seem insanely selfish and immature, but it points to something real and deep – the painful experience that friends have when their friends get married and have children and suddenly move into a different space, and the single friend doesn’t know how to fit anymore. If the single friend wants to remain single, it is even more a challenge to negotiate how to stay in married’s friends live, at times. I feel like it DOESN’T have to be this way, this is a very culturally specific thing.
I think as Adorno would say, HIMYM does what all propaganda does – it cannot hide it’s true message under its ideology. Ostensibly the show is about trying to find that perfect, insulated nuclear, “safe” world of marriage/kids that Ted desperately wants, so much that he wants to be old so he’ll already have lived his life – but really the show is about all the marvelous, funny, touching and meaningful things that happen on the way to that supposed “fairy tale ending”. Once Ted finds “her” the show is over. So really, although the ideology of nuclear family is heavily spouted, really, the show celebrates the complex and fluid world of friendship/relationship/community/solitude and the struggle to understand what is “really happening” rather than what one imagines in fantasy. And that is why I love it so much! I just wish they didn’t need to cap off/control that wonderfully complex world by giving it some sort of limiting frame of eventuall marriage/disolution.
Personally, if I found out that I naturally couldn’t have children, I would feel like I won the freakin’ lottery.
What I got from this week’s episode is that the writers think all women really want children deep down even if they won’t admit it. I didn’t see her emotional reaction as complex at all. Between this episode and the incredibly offensive “baby brain” one, I’m really done with the show.
Wow, I could not possibly disagree more.
I have a friend who does not like kids and never remotely wanted them. Yet when she had to have a hysterectomy due to cancer treatments, she was upset because the option of changing her mind had been taken away from her, and that’s the way I saw Robin reacting. The episode affirmed that in the end she really doesn’t want kids and is glad that she won’t have them, but she’s upset that she no longer has a CHOICE.
I’m really deeply sorry that your own prejudices keep you from enjoying a show you used to like and make you assume that every woman should act the way you would.
Both you and Andrea are responding to the episode based on your personal experiences or the personal experiences of people you know, and yet somehow she’s the only one who’s letting her prejudices affect her while you’re the clear-headed, objective one.
Interesting.