Five-Dollar Family

by

Cate Kennedy

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Five-Dollar Family Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Michelle’s eyes are barely open as she listens to a midwife instruct her to wake up her newborn baby boy every three hours, which will help make him interested in feeding and help Michelle’s breastmilk come in. This particular midwife is “the bossy one.” The other one is a lot more gentle and compassionate, and always asks Michelle how she’s doing rather than scolding her or examining her stitches.
The midwife’s instructions regarding how and why Michelle needs to wake up her newborn suggests that this is Michelle’s first baby, and so she is just beginning to learn how to step into this new role as a mother. That she misses the kinder, gentler midwife suggests that Michelle is overwhelmed at suddenly being thrust into motherhood.
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The midwives squeeze a thick, sticky substance from Michelle’s breasts. Just two days ago this would have been embarrassing and horrifying for Michelle, but now she allows them to “poke and probe and pump her.” Her body feels so saggy and uncomfortable that it doesn’t even feel like it belongs to her anymore.
The thick, sticky substance described in this passage is colostrum, the first form of milk that a woman produces when breastfeeding. The story is bookended with references to breastfeeding—it opens with this reference to colostrum, and it ends with Michelle’s breastmilk finally coming in days later—which underscores that the experience of stepping into motherhood for the first time is of central importance to the story. Michelle describes how the midwives “poke and probe and pump” her, implying that she’s treated impersonally while in the hospital. “Poke and probe” resembles the phrase “poke and prod” (e.g., cattle are poked and prodded along to move them), which adds to the suggestion that Michelle is being treated more like a cow—a producer of milk—than like a person.
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Michelle’s baby’s red, scrunched face looks “startling in its strangeness.” Michelle had thought her baby would look more like the one on the front of the baby-oil bottle: happy and rosy, with a little tuft of hair. When Des first saw their baby, he’d looked “perplexed”—just like he did throughout the labor.
This passage introduces two of the story’s key themes: that of expectations versus reality, which is a tension that runs throughout the story, and the idea of having a picture-perfect family, which is something Michelle strives for. That Des is described as looking “perplexed”—as opposed to looking overjoyed, emotional, or excited, for instance—is an early indication that he will struggle to step into a fatherly role.
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Now, Michelle asks Des if he’d like to hold their son. Michelle herself is getting better at holding her baby and is less scared about it—it’s like “holding a big parcel of hot chips.” Des nervously declines, and Michelle pities him. He offers to purchase a disposable camera, which Michelle takes as Des’s version of apologizing for pawning her camera.
Michelle’s initial fear of holding her baby gives way to the realization that holding him when he’s swaddled is a lot like “holding a big parcel of hot chips,” or French fries. This is another example of how motherhood subverts Michelle’s expectations, and it also shows her more confidently stepping into her role as a mother with practice.
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Later that night, Michelle quietly inches out of bed and across her hospital room to Jason’s crib. Even though she’s been warned not to do so, she carefully lifts Jason out of the crib and settles him in bed next to her. She’s not tired—a bright, fiery energy is pulsing through her, as if someone turned on a light switch.
Several of the anecdotes Michelle shares throughout the story depict Michelle as permissive and passive prior to giving birth (examples include Michelle’s nonconfrontational attitude towards Des regarding his criminal charge and infidelity, her tolerant smile while listening to Des’s father, etc.). But the idea that someone has turned on a light switch within Michelle suggests that motherhood is transforming her. And indeed, as the story continues, Michelle will increasingly lean into this new, fiery energy and shed her old passivity.
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Michelle quietly sings little made-up songs to Jason before sneaking him back into his crib. She knows the midwives wouldn’t approve, but she thinks that they’d back down if she told them off. Her bright energy is colored “with a private, freshly minted exhilaration.”
Once again, the story emphasizes that motherhood is leading Michelle to significantly break with her past passivity. As she toys with the idea of telling off the midwives, Michelle feels a “freshly minted,” or new, sense of confidence and energy pulsating through her.
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When the midwives do their rounds the next morning, they check if Michelle’s milk has come in yet. It hasn’t. They urge her to keep trying to feed Jason because doing so will stimulate her pituitary gland to release oxytocin, and then her milk will flow—this is what they call the “let-down reflex.” Michelle worries that her baby will starve, but the midwife reminds her that it’s only day two. Eventually, her milk should come in, and Jason will develop his sucking reflex.
Michelle’s struggle to successfully breastfeed her newborn is the undercurrent that runs throughout the entire story and backs up the story’s claim that motherhood (and especially new motherhood) is fraught with frustration. Michelle’s concern that her baby will starve suggests that she expected breastfeeding to come easily, but the reality is far more complicated. The midwives’ explanation of the let-down reflex speaks to the idea that motherhood is transformational on a physical level: giving birth, followed by the mere act of attempting to breastfeed, sends a powerful signal to a woman’s body that leads her to begin producing breastmilk.
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The woman staying in the next hospital room pokes her head in the room and says she has the opposite problem: her baby feeds so aggressively that her nipples are cracked and painful. She whispers “conspiratorial[ly]” to Michelle that the second she gets home, she’s putting her baby on formula rather than continuing with the breastfeeding, even though “these nipple Nazis” would disapprove.
Much of the story hinges on the idea that media and advertising give women inflated expectations about what childbirth, motherhood, and co-parenting will look and feel like. Here, though, the story engages with the idea that other people’s expectations can be just as formative. In referring to the midwives as “nipple Nazis,” the woman in the next room suggests that the midwives so firmly believe in the value of breastfeeding that they’re unwilling to entertain formula as a viable alternative.
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On Monday afternoon, Michelle is allowed to take a short walk in the hospital courtyard, which is where she sees a poster advertising a $5 family portrait at the shopping center across the street. “Let a PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER do a studio portrait of you both with your new baby,” the poster reads. Michelle resolves to get the portrait done tomorrow.
This passage introduces the titular $5 family portrait, which is central both to the story’s action and Michelle’s evolving understanding of family. The advertisement for the family portrait reads, “do a studio portrait of you both with your new baby,” thereby suggesting that a family consists of two parents (“you both”). Michelle clings to this more traditional understanding of family throughout her pregnancy, as shown through the anecdotes she shares later in the story.
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Michelle asks one of the nurses about the portrait special, and the nurse says it’s only on Tuesdays, so Michelle wouldn’t be able to go till the following week—the doctor has ordered her to stay in bed at least until Thursday. Michelle claims that she feels fine, though she tries to hide the deep ache coursing through her and sweat dripping down her back from the pain. Inching painfully back to her hospital room, she thinks about how every time she sees Jason’s plastic crib, she feels a mix of “disbelief, terror, and happiness.”
Michelle’s willingness to lie about her severe pain underscores that the family portrait is extremely important to her—raising the question as to why this is, and why she can’t get the portrait done the following week once she’s had the chance to heal. Her cocktail of emotions when she sees her baby (“disbelief, terror, and happiness”) suggests that motherhood, and particularly new motherhood, is a complex experience of emotional extremes. Michele’s pain, meanwhile, stresses the actual physical strain that women must endure to become mothers—something that men never have to deal with.
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Later, a midwife assists Michelle in trying to breastfeed again. Michelle is annoyed that the midwife keeps referring to Jason as “Baby,” as if he didn’t have a proper name. Likewise, the midwives and doctors often talk about Michelle as if she weren’t in the room—like after the labor, when the doctors were giving Michelle stitches for a tear and talking amongst themselves while Michelle laid there shellshocked, as if she’d been flung against a wall by a bomb blast. The stitches were sharp like a barbed-wire fence, and Michelle’s skin was so swollen that it didn’t feel like it was her own.
Here, Michelle gives two examples of receiving impersonal treatment at the hospital, and her frustration suggests that she expected mothers, and especially new mothers, would have more tender, individual attention from hospital staff after giving birth. The references to a bomb blast and barbed-wire fence carry associations with war, death, and imprisonment. In using these analogies, Michelle highlights the extreme level of shock and destruction her body endured in labor. With this, the story stresses how giving birth and becoming a mother is physically transformational—Michelle’s body quicky goes from feeling familiar to foreign to her—and also that it’s a physically excruciating experience. The story doesn’t attempt to sidestep the more unsavory parts of having a child; instead, through Michelle, the story displays many of motherhood’s physical and emotional extremes.
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Frustrated with Jason’s lack of interest in breastfeeding, Michelle wants to cry but knows better than to do so while the midwives are around. She knows they’re watching her like a hawk, “trained to keep an eye out for the new mothers who dissolve into weeping.” The other day, one of the midwives asked Michelle if she was experiencing any signs of postpartum depression, such as crying all the time for no reason. Michelle says no but thinks privately about how she was doing that before Jason was born.
Even though Michelle’s narration just revealed her frustration with the impersonal treatment she’s received at the hospital, this passage suggests that she feels that the midwives can be too attentive to their patients at times—the word “hawk” makes the midwives’ attention sound threatening rather than comforting. With its reference to postpartum depression, this passage also points to the story’s overarching claim that motherhood is an emotionally complex and emotionally draining experience.
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The old her, Michelle thinks, was dumb and ignorant compared to the person she is now. She had been so sure that everything was going to change for the better between her and Des after they had a baby together. When she’d look at the cards at the newsstand that pictured male models gazing adoringly at a baby in their arms, she was always so sure that that same adoration would appear in Des once he saw his baby and Michelle saw him with the baby. She’d had a “vague idea” that he’d then take care of her and the baby and be just like the men on the cards.
Prior to giving birth to Jason, Michelle believed that the birth would be redemptive for Des and for their relationship. But that Michelle now considers this past, optimistic version of her to be so foolishly naïve reveals that her expectations went unmet. Michelle’s longing when looking at the male models holding babies on the greeting cards reveals her attitude towards family and fatherhood: she wants Des to be a present, committed, and tender father, even though her narration suggests that he’s unlikely to be any of these things. Her “vague idea” suggests that her hopes in Des’s abilities as a partner are founded on media depictions of fathers and not on any actual traits in Del himself, but that she nevertheless clings to the idea that he should show up in this way now that they’re having a baby together and more formally becoming a family.
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When Michelle was admitted to the hospital, she was initially grateful to have Des’s familiar presence there. But once Michelle’s pain intensified, Des grew nervous and looked at her with “startled distaste.” She’d hoped he would soothingly rub her back like she saw in the video in antenatal class—or at least do something besides hanging back on the sidelines and then leaving altogether to get himself a drink.
The video Michelle watched in her antenatal, or prenatal, class informed her expectations of how Des is supposed to act while Michelle is in labor, but these expectations go unmet, too. Michelle’s expectations imply that she sees childbirth—and, by extension, raising a family—as a joint effort. But Des’s choice to eventually leave the room altogether suggests that he sees childbirth (and perhaps the baby itself) as Michelle’s responsibility, while his nervousness and look of “startled distaste” betray what appears to be his discomfort with and fear about becoming a father.
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As Michelle was preparing to give birth, the staff instructed her to “listen to her body,” which she scoffed at. But as the time drew nearer, she realized that her body did know what to do. Labor was a whirlwind, and when it was over, Michelle realized that Des wasn’t even in the room.
The whirlwind of activity that ensues as Michelle goes into labor mirrors the idea that motherhood is a complicated experience of both emotional and physical extremes. Nevertheless, the hospital staff suggest that childbirth—and, by extension, motherhood—is at least partially innate rather than learned. Just as Michelle’s body eventually knows how to create and release breastmilk, her body will know how to deliver a child. That Des isn’t even in the room when Michelle gives birth again shows how he’s subverting Michelle’s expectations of how he should act as a partner and father, and his unwillingness and inability to show up as a parenting partner for her.
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Once Michelle had Jason in her arms, though, she stopped worrying about Des. She’d looked over at Des once he returned: he was slumped in a chair, avoiding her gaze and jiggling his leg nervously in his stretched-out sweatpants. “Useless,” Michelle had thought irritably.
The story’s description of Des in this passage frames him as a jumpy teenager rather than an excited father. That Michelle sees Des as “useless” suggests that, in this moment, she recognizes his sheer inability to step into a fatherly role the way she had hoped he would.
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Back in the present, Michelle thinks about how Des has always been secretive. When someone appeared at their door a few weeks ago with a court summons for Des, and he’d simply retrieved it and sat back down in front of the TV, not saying a word to Michelle about it. Later, she’d sifted through his wallet in search of the summons, feeling guilty about it but wanting to know what he was being charged for: aggravated assault.
The story again frames Des as a teenager here in describing his silent return back to the TV. And Michelle is depicted as a mother who is forced to sift through her uncommunicative teenager’s belongings in order to learn about what’s going on in their life. This backstory about Des’s communication style (or lack thereof) and criminal charge begin to flesh out why Michelle deems him “useless.”
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Des has already been charged for similar things three times, which means he has no more probations. Despite this, he hasn’t mentioned it to Michelle, and his court date is on Thursday. She knows that he’ll try to get the court’s pity by saying he has a girlfriend and newborn baby—but no more probations means he’ll go straight from the courtroom to jail. Des seems to think that if he ignores it, it will go away.
Des’s latest criminal charge has broad implications for his life, as well as Michelle’s: though the story doesn’t suggest how long Des’s sentence would be, it does emphasize that Des going to jail will effectively make Michelle a single mother. This passage also speaks to Des’s moral depravity: he has faced several similar criminal charges in the past, he abdicates responsibility for his latest charge by not telling Michelle about it even though it will severely impact her life, and he’s likely to leverage his role as a new father in a desperate attempt to sidestep his sentence without ever acting as a real father.
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Stroking Jason’s ear, Michelle thinks back to when she’d borrowed one of Des’s shirts recently and found a receipt in the pocket for condoms. After nearly fainting, Michelle thought about that night when Des had brought her snacks and DVDs and then went out alone. At the time, she’d thought he was thoughtful to take care of her like that, but now she knows he was just trying to “shut her up and keep her fat and dumb and happy.”
Here, the story again engages with the theme of expectations versus reality when it contrasts Michelle’s belief that Des was compassionately taking care of her with the reality that he was trying to appease her and keep her out of the way so that he could cheat on her. This is the second time in the story that Michelle has suggested that she used to be dumb and naïve (at least in situations regarding Des) and is wiser now, which suggests that becoming a mother has begun to transform her.
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Back in the present, Des asks Michelle what day she’s allowed home. When she says Thursday, he awkwardly mumbles that he has “this court thing” that morning, so Michelle tells him firmly to arrange for his mother to pick Michelle and Jason up from the hospital if Des can’t do it.
Des’s evasiveness and mumbling—and the fact that he needs his mom to pick up Michelle from the hospital—again frames him as immature, as essentially a teenager. This is a sharp contrast from the fathers on the greeting cards whom Michelle hoped Des could be like.
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Michelle remembers when she first met Des’s parents at a barbeque. His mother fussed over Des and his younger brother, Kyle, and talked about Des’s community service order—painting lines on basketball courts—as if it were a real job. Des’s father, meanwhile, laughed about how Des “can be a bit of a naughty boy” and told Michelle to keep an eye on him. At the time, Michelle just smiled, feeling as permissive as Des’s mother.
This passage again contrasts expectations with reality. Des’s mother frames Des’s task of painting lines on basketball courts like it’s a real job, while his father frames Des as a “naughty boy” rather than a criminal with multiple offenses who cheats on his pregnant girlfriend. Michelle’s silent smile at these comments stands in stark contrast with the assertiveness she’ll begin to show throughout the rest of the story.
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Now, Michelle realizes that’s exactly what Des is: a “naughty boy.” She pointedly tells Des to pick her and the baby up on Thursday “after the court thing.” He gulps nervously, and Michelle feels powerful. She instructs him to buy something nice for the baby to wear in the portrait the following day.
Here, Michelle suggests that the term “naughty boy”—though a seemingly inaccurate description of a criminal—isn’t all that far off. She implies that “naughty boy” is infantilizing, and because Des acts more like a teenager than a life partner and parent, the term is perhaps fitting. The way Michelle tells Des directly what he is going to do, while making clear her understanding of the gravity of the court appearance that he is trying to pretend is just a small thing, is a sharp departure from the way she quietly, tolerantly smiled at Des’s father’s comments in the last passage, again suggesting that something about becoming a mother has transformed and emboldened her. It’s also significant that she stresses wanting Jason to look nice in the family photo, as it again suggests that getting the photo taken (and how they’ll look in it) is extremely important to her. Even if Des has turned out to be disappointing, she wants to “look” like one of those idealized families, at least once.
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The next morning, Des arrives and proudly displays what he bought for the baby: a tiny motorcycle jacket covered in zippers and patches. Des smiles an “idiot chimp smile,” and Michelle is horrified, knowing that this jacket must have used up most of her baby allowance—and she doesn’t even have other necessities, like a changing table, yet. Des happily wrestles Jason into the jacket, and Michelle has to fight off the impulse to swat Des’s hand away from their baby. She thinks that Jason will outgrow the jacket quickly, but Des will never outgrow his behavior. This, she thinks, is the real let-down reflex.
While Michelle previously fantasized about seeing Des holding Jason, she now fights the impulse to prevent Des from even touching their baby, which confirms that her expectations about how the birth would change Des for the better were unfounded. Her narration reveals that he’s foolish (he smiles an “idiot chimp smile”), financially irresponsible, and ignorant, and the tiny motorcycle jacket symbolizes this.
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After taking her pain medication, Michelle gingerly walks through the hospital en route to get the portrait taken. The nurses chide her for being out of bed, but she remains resolute: she is going to get her picture taken no matter what they say.
Michelle’s fierce resolve to get the family portrait taken—despite her clear contempt for Des—begins to suggest that preserving the appearance of having a nuclear family via a single photo is perhaps more important to her than trying to make things work with Des.
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When Des, Michelle, and Jason arrive at the supermarket complex where the portraits are being taken, Michelle firmly tells the photographer that they’re there for the $5 family special, hearing a “new hint of steel” in her voice. Her stitches are excruciating as she carefully poses in a chair and arranges Des and Jason just as she’s envisioned. As the camera’s flash goes off, Michelle thinks that she needs at least one picture that “looks right.”
The mention of the “new hint of steel” in Michelle’s voice comes right before the mention of her stitches (which she has because of the trauma of giving birth and which she previously compared to metal barbed-wire). This close association suggests that it’s motherhood—and all it has entailed thus far, like suffering a deep, painful tear in childbirth—that’s given Michelle this newfound strength and tenacity. Meanwhile, her thoughts about needing a picture that “looks right” confirms that she wants to hold things together with Des just for this photo, and that having two parents in the family portrait instead of one is what will make it “look[] right.”
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Michelle decides that they need one family portrait without Jason’s jacket and tosses it to the side. She knows this picture is going to be “the one.” But when the camera’s flash goes off, Jason kicks suddenly and wails, and liquid seeps through Michelle’s shirt: her milk has finally come in. Michelle feels like Jason’s cry is tugging on a wire through her body, extending all the way down to her stitches.
One of the clearest instances of unmet expectations, the photo that Michelle expects will be “the one” that “looks right” ends with Jason kicking and screaming while milk seeps through Michelle’s shirt. (It’s unclear how the picture itself turns out, but given that the flash goes off before a camera captures the image, it’s likely that the picture wasn’t the perfectly posed one Michelle anticipated.)
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Des is horrified that Michelle is about to breastfeed in public, but Michelle can hardly hear him—like the faint sound of someone’s voice coming through the phone right as you hang up on them. Michelle knows she has everything Jason needs, and that Jason knows this, too.
The analogy about hanging up the phone on someone implies that Michelle is metaphorically hanging up on Des and ending their relationship. Her realization that she has everything Jason needs—and thus doesn’t need Des’s help with co-parenting—suggests this as well.
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Michelle had read in a brochure that the let-down reflex is a tingling feeling or a tightening sensation. But for her, it’s more like a strong, surging shiver that’s entirely out of her control, like the feeling when a person finally stops holding back their tears.
Michelle’s experience of the let-down reflex was far more sudden, emotional, and intense than the brochure led her to believe. The physical shiver—coupled with the suggestion that Michelle may be crying here—also points back to the idea that motherhood is both a physical and emotional experience, and that in Michelle’s specific case the disappointments around Des combined with the realization that she can give her baby what he needs floods her with both grief and joy..
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