BABY BOOM: A Product of the Eighties.
America in the late 1980s was a period of time consumed by the struggle between two extreme ideals. The women's movement had successfully paved the way for a woman's place in the workforce, and throughout the eighties, more and more women emerged as leaders in the corporate world, an environment that had been characterized by male dominance in the past. Meanwhile, the rise of the working woman, along with the escalation of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and continued existence in the Cold War, alerted much of society to the recent digression from the traditional family values that defined the 1950s U.S. and were viewed as the ideal lifestyle and portrayed in such television shows as "Ozzie and Harriet", "I Love Lucy", and "Leave it to Beaver". (McWilliams, 404). All of these shows focused on a nuclear family in which each character played the traditional role of a "wife", "father", or "son", had problems which were typically resolved within the half hour episode, and had family members who were ultimately happy with their lives. The eighties marked the compromise between these two conflicting lifestyles. Society in the 1980s voiced a wish to convert from the liberal morals of the seventies to a more conservative and goal oriented standard of living. Therefore, movies made in the eighties, such as the 1987 film Baby Boom, "portray the transformation of Baby Boomers from hippies to yuppies" (Manning). One particular critic described Baby Boom as "a typically 1980s movie whose essential message is 'making money and living in flashy apartments is all well and good, but what we all really want is to have kids and live in an old house making jam"" (Falk).
Bob Thomas" article, "At the Movies: Baby Boom", from the Associated Press, relates Baby Boom to the 1930s Carole Lombard comedies. Similar to the 1930s, Baby Boom captures the essence of the importance of the family.