Television sitcoms, whether intentionally or not, affirm the baby’s existence in the womb as a real life. However, they also stress the importance of the grieving process for both the mother and father.
The NeighborhoodFor four seasons, it has been an iconic CBS comedy series and its No. The second-most-rated show. The situation comedy centers around “The Johnsons,” a white couple from the Midwest gentrifying a Los Angeles neighborhood, their relationship with their Black, next-door neighbors, “The Butlers,” and all the comedic beats that ensue from those exchanges.
Comedian Cedric the Entertainer plays “Calvin Butler,” Tichina Arnold (Everyone Hates Chris Survivor’s Remorse) plays “Tina Butler,” and their two grown sons “Malcolm” (Sheaun McKinney), and “Marty” (Marcel Spears) factor into the interactions. The Johnsons “Dave” is played by Max Greenfield (Neue Girl), and “Gemma” is played by Beth Behrs (Two Broke Girls), and they have a tween son “Grover” (Hank Greenspan).
In the Season 4’s fourth episode, “Welcome to the Porch Pirate”, Dave and Gemma, who started out the season with the joy and anticipation of a pregnancy, have now experienced a miscarriage after 10 weeks. The episode focuses on Gemma’s struggle to navigate her grief.
Notes from the mrcTV blog
This week’s episode of CBS’s The Neighborhood dealt with the loss of a character’s unborn child through miscarriage. The episode made clear throughout that the baby in the womb was indeed a human life, not just a clump of cells or whatever it is pro-aborts imagine is growing inside a woman.
The episode shows Gemma’s attempts to avoid how much the loss of her baby’s life has devastated her. Gemma doesn’t allow herself time to grieve. Instead, she tries to avoid feeling the pain by getting involved in activity.
Sounds familiar. All the “Shout your abortion” and gun control activism is rooted in the Left’s inability to acknowledge what is truly tragic, and navigate and acknowledge the grief that ensues when a life is taken, whether that is through abortion or other means.
One of the lines in the episode spoken by Gemma’s husband Dave,
“I was just so shocked when there wasn’t a heartbeat.”
I found it interesting that the writers chose to keep this line, given the battle over Texas’ SB8 Heartbeat law, and other heartbeat bills and laws being challenged across the country. This reinforces the reality that a beating heart is a sign of life.
The entertainment publication Variety covers the episode as a reflection of the approach of the new showrunner Meg DeLoatch, it also summarizes the episode with words that represent life in the womb as an actual baby, not just a “clump of cells.”
One of the biggest examples of this has already played out the fourth episode of the season: In “Welcome to the Porch Pirate,” Gemma (Beth Behrs) experiences a miscarriage and struggles to allow herself to grieve. This is not the case. The act of losing a baby is illustrated, but comes in after in order to “lead with emotion,” DeLoatch tells Variety.
Another interesting aspect of this episode is the fact that it confirms the following truth: Loss of a child can be as devastating for men as it is for women.
Gemma spoke to Dave about her loss and he said,
“Yeah, and… I know, but… This is also one of the hardest things we’ll ever have to deal with.
The Left loves to tell men that if they don’t have a uterus, they have no say in the matter of abortion. This disconnects the role and importance of the father in conception and in decision-making, as well as in raising and caring for a child.
It is deliberate and completely ignores the pain a father feels when he loses his child due to miscarriage or abortion. This episode was a beautiful example of how the pain of losing a baby can sometimes be equally devastating to men as it is to women.
But, the episode also focuses on the collective grief felt not only by the pregnant couple, but by the baby’s sibling, and the people who are the extended family. Here, the Butlers are expressing not just their grief at The Johnsons’ loss, but also their personal grievances from losing a child years ago. It is Cedric the Entertainer’s character Calvin who ultimately helps Gemma face her pain and feel the loss of her child.
This is acknowledged by the mcrg Blog
The episode does a commendable job discussing the emotional attachment a father also has to his unborn child and the grief he feels over the loss of a baby in the womb. When Tina’s husband, Calvin (Cedric the Entertainer), talks to Gemma about the miscarriage, both characters open up about their pain.
Some of the dialogues between Calvin, Gemma and Gemma were very apt.
Gemma: “I don’t want to feel this. It makes it real—my baby’s gone… I just want to be numb.”
Calvin: “The more I tried to avoid the pain, the more it lingered.”
Variety also noted how the writer gave equal and important weight to the father’s and extended family’s grief:
Dave (Max Greenfield), a father of Gemma, also struggles to cope with her loss. He rushes their son Grover (Hank Greenspan), into the arcade in an attempt to distract himself from his emotions. Tina (Tichina Arnold) tries to help in her way — by making enough food to get them through many, many weeks — but ultimately it is Calvin (Cedric the Entertainer) who seems to help the most, getting through to Gemma by talking about the baby he and Tina lost and being a literal shoulder for her to lean on.
VarietyThis exchange is sanitized, which makes it more powerful and causes Gemma to burst into tears. Calvin offered Gemma his shoulder. Crumble onIt is possible to cry. It is normal to cry during grief.
The episode concludes with the Johnson family planting an oak tree to honor their child. This ritual is performed by their family, the Butlers. The ritual has funeral undertones, but is filled with hope. All the participants wore white, to show that distinction. Showing this type of ceremony not only lent dignity to their child’s life, which did not come to fullness on this earth, but it gave every person involved in their family an opportunity to acknowledge their own grief and share these emotions together.
The baby’s life was acknowledged and honored, rather than thrown into a dumpster like garbage, or used in a vaccine.
While there are many ways to help the Variety article goes deeper into the showrunner DeLoatch’s own miscarriage and her desire to explore that story in order to give the female characters more agency and arcs, what DeLoatch really did was blast more holes in the argument that a baby in the womb is not a life, and that abortion is a necessary act.
Pro-Life communities offer support for families, women and men who are grieving an abortion, miscarriage or loss of child. You can start your journey at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops prolife resource website.
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