Expectations vs. Reality Theme Analysis

Throughout “Five-Dollar Family,” Michelle’s expectations—of herself, her baby, and her boyfriend, Des—repeatedly go unmet. These expectations largely center around what she believes motherhood and parenthood “should” feel like or look like, at least according to the various forms of media she was exposed to throughout her pregnancy (e.g., informational brochures, greeting cards, etc.). Through Michelle’s unmet expectations and her ultimate acceptance of reality, the story shows that media and advertising set lofty expectations surrounding relationships, parenthood, and womanhood that real life and real people often don’t live up to.

The various forms of media and advertising that Michelle sees throughout her pregnancy inform her expectations of new motherhood and her baby, though her reality is far more unglamorous than she anticipated. For instance, before Michelle gives birth to Jason, she assumes that he’ll look like the baby on the front of the baby-oil bottle: the angelic-looking baby, who is clapping its hands in delight, has chubby, pink cheeks and a perfect, curled tuft of hair at the top of its head. But instead of looking like this familiar, archetypal baby, Jason’s face is “startling in its strangeness,” emphasizing that his appearance completely subverts Michelle’s expectations. His skin is bright red rather than a charming rosy pink color, and instead of being round and chubby, his face is scrunched and wrinkly. He looks more like “a tiny old man exhausted after a long and arduous journey”—or, when he’s swaddled, like “a big parcel of hot chips”—than the bouncy, happy baby she expected.

The informational brochure about breastfeeding that Michelle reads also leads her to have unrealistic expectations about motherhood. The brochure explains the let-down reflex: when the baby attempts to breastfeed, the mother’s brain releases the chemical oxytocin into the bloodstream, which consequently makes breastmilk flow. The brochure describes the let-down reflex as a gentle “tingling sensation” or “tightening” feeling. But when Michelle’s breastmilk finally comes in at the very end of the story, the experience is sudden, intense, and emotional. Rather than a subtle tingling or tightening, Michelle’s let-down reflex feels like an incontrollable shiver surging through her body. She likens the experience to “the way tears will start when something makes you forget, for a minute, what you’re supposed to be holding them back for.” In other words, just like when the floodgates open and someone begins to sob after holding back tears, Michelle’s milk suddenly pours out in a “shocking flood.” As Jason’s eyes peer up at her, Michelle imagines that he’s saying “it’s you,” and that her eyes silently tell him “yeah, it’s me.” The analogy of tears, following the tender moment between Jason and Michelle, also implies that Michelle might be crying here—and this is especially likely given that, earlier in the story, she was holding back tears out of frustration over not being able to feed Jason. So not only is the let-down reflex more physically powerful and shocking than Michelle had expected based on the brochure, but it’s also implied to have an entire emotional layer to it that the brochure didn’t prepare Michelle for.

Different forms of media and advertising also inflate Michelle’s expectations of her boyfriend, Des, in regards to his capacity as a partner and father. And just like her expectations of motherhood, these expectations prove unrealistic. While she was pregnant, Michelle would sift through greeting cards at the newsstand depicting “guys with their shirts off holding little vulnerable babies, expressions of adoration on their faces; guys who looked like models, but still.” Though the pictures on the cards are implied to be staged, Michelle nevertheless begins to believe “that adoration would kick in once Des saw the baby and she saw Des with the baby.” With the phrase “kick in,” Michelle implies that Des isn’t the adoring type, and that she is counting on this changing suddenly when the baby arrives. Michelle’s hope is twofold, as she also implies that she doesn’t feel very loving towards Des and expects this to change, too. But when he first sees his son, Des looks “perplexed” and wears a “faintly incredulous look” of “startled distaste”—a sharp contrast from the way the men on the greeting cards gazed affectionately at their babies.

And though while she was pregnant, Michelle “had some vague idea that she’d be able to rest and Des would take over and look after them both, hold his son unashamedly in the crook of his arm like the men on the cards,” her reality is much different. For much of the story, Des declines to hold their baby, and when he finally does, Michelle has to stuff down her impulse to “bat his hands away,” and she “banishes the thought of Jason ever lying naked in the crook of Des’s arm.” So while the greeting cards led Michelle to believe that Des would immediately become tender and loving towards Jason—and that seeing this would make Michelle feel tender and loving towards Des—neither of her expectations are met.

The video that Michelle watches in her prenatal class—which depicts a woman going into labor while her partner rubs her back soothingly—also shapes her expectations of how Des will act during and after the birth. But rather than comforting Michelle as her labor pains intensify like the person in the video, Des distracts himself by pacing or flipping through TV channels. And rather than staying by Michelle’s side, Des leaves the room entirely to go get himself a drink and doesn’t return until after Jason is born. Near the end of the story, Michelle grapples with the fact that Des will never be like the doting fathers on the greeting cards or the supportive significant other in the prenatal video. Looking at the tiny leather jacket Des bought for Jason—itself symbolic of Des’s immaturity and incompetence as a father and partner—Michelle finally accepts that “Jason might grow out of it […] but Des never will.”