The "Smashmortion" Debate

If you who watched Monday night’s pilot of the CBS sitcom Accidentally on Purpose, you might have wondered why Jenna Elfman’s character, Billie, didn’t consider an abortion. After all, she discovered she was pregnant from a one-night-stand with Zach (Jon Foster), a much younger man with serious slacker tendencies. Not exactly obvious dad material. Billie is a movie critic, so she should, in theory, do some critical thinking in regard to her own life. It also seems reasonable to expect that a journalist would be able to use the word “abortion” in relation to her own situation. As in, “Should I have an abortion?”

She does not ask that question, at least in this first episode. I, however, most certainly did. And I'm the "real" Billie. CBS’s Accidentally on Purpose is loosely based on my memoir of the same name [2] (which in its paperback edition has the subtitle “The True Tale of a Happy Single Mother”). It’s the story of what happened after I, at 39, then a newspaper film critic, had a very unexpectedly productive one-night stand with an unemployed 29-year-old.

Sitcom-me is not as ancient as reality me, in part because Elfman is 37, about to turn 38. But I would also guess that 39 is an unappealing number for the networks. Thirty-seven has possibilities. Thirty-nine is basically 40, which is practically a grandmother in TV world. And my sitcom lover is younger as well: only 22. What’s ironic about that age change is that if I had been 37 and had drunken, unprotected sex with a 22 year-old like Zach, I would have taken the morning-after pill. I’m not saying that would have been the right choice, only that I needed to be at the brink of the 40-something cliff in order to jump off it.

Did I know I was fertile on that evening? No. Sex-deprived for nearly a year, I’d lost track of where and when I was in my cycle. There was a condom on the premises, but it never made it out of the package. (Anyone who wants to judge me for the unprotected sex should know this: In theory, I get you, but in practice, I’ve got a spectacularly sweet and beautiful son, and the pleasure of his company trumps any and all societal condemnation.)

I realized I was pregnant only a few weeks after that night. Like Billie, my response to the positive test included some freaking out, because that is what you do when you realize you are pregnant by a stranger, but mostly I felt an inner certainty that I was going to have that baby and that, somehow, it would all be OK.

But as the weeks went by and I got to know more about the father of my potential child, who had been temping on and off for three years, doubts did set in that made me consider having an abortion. He seemed so drifty, and I was so scared. The impulse that had driven my whole romantic life up until that point, the seeking of a traditional, married life with house and kids, was so ingrained that it continued to pull at me, even when I thought I’d made the decision.

I was about seven weeks pregnant when I went to a speed-dating event that I’d signed up for months before. I went because I was curious. I went because I wanted to feel other possibilities. And honestly, the men there surprised me. There were at least five I’d have gone out on a date with, including a geologist with kids I was somewhat smitten by. They loomed as opportunities for that traditional life, one that seemed “easier” back then, before I learned that there are as many joys in deviation as there are in wedded bliss.

I told Matt, who had been agonizing over how to break the news to his parents, that I was not sure I was going ahead with the pregnancy. He told me it was my choice but that he hoped I wouldn’t have an abortion. He was not stern, he was not demanding, he was just interested in loving this child we could have. Have I mentioned that he is a tremendously good guy?

I went to see a pregnancy counselor. I told her all my concerns, starting with money. Billie has a swell apartment in San Francisco on the show. I don’t know whether she owns, but she already has an extra room, just perfect for a nursery. I had a nice but small rented one-bedroom in a seminasty part of Oakland. The closet was big, but a crib would not fit in it. (I measured.) I was making enough to just get by. No savings. Factor in daycare, and I figured I’d be destitute after two months. I was terrified. I worried about derailing all I’d worked so hard for, which seems like an utter joke now that newspapers are in their death throes. I loved being a movie critic then, and I still do now.

But as I told my counselor, I’d been down the college-girl abortion route, and it had broken my heart. Not in a I-shouldn’t-have-done-that way, but in a I-wish-I-hadn’t-had-to-do-that way, which never eased, not even when the guy who had gotten me pregnant in my early 20s turned out to be a remarkably gifted liar and cheat.

I didn’t want to go back to the sad regrets of abortion. I wanted to go forward, into the scary unknown, where there was at least one certainty: I would be a mother. I left the counselor’s office, went home, looked over my pro and con list, and threw it in the recycling bin. I included my debate over this in my book because I believe in truth and messy realities, especially in memoir. I believe that what I lived through in college informed my decision at 39.

Do I wish the sitcom version of my life included some scenes like that? I do. Roseanne could have squeezed them in. I suppose it’s possible they’ll get to that in later shows—I’ve only seen the pilot and parts of the sixth episode. Chances are there were concerns that a discussion of body politics was too much to try to cram into an already packed 22 minutes of jokes, character introduction, and situational set-up. And that it would scare off some viewers. I just read an online review of my book [3] by a mommy blogger who said she almost put it down when she got to my passage about having had an abortion. “I know that you are not suppose [sic] to judge but I was livid. I know a lot of people who pray and pray for a baby and have never become parents. … I was so mad, I almost didn't finish the book.”

But she did finish it. I could not ask for more from this particular reader. I’m grateful. Maybe she would have switched to Dancing With the Stars if the word abortion had been bandied about during the sitcom pilot. But here’s how I might have slipped it in there, right after the positive pregnancy test.

Billie’s slutty best friend Olivia (played by the fabulous Ashley Jensen): “So you’re sure you’re going ahead with it? All those dreary pro-choice rallies you made me sit through and you don’t want to exercise your options?”

Billie [serious]: “I don’t want to go there again. Not at this point in my life.”

And then, just to get a cheap laugh, Billie’s ditzy sister Abby could have chimed in: “Your therapy would probably end up costing as much as day care is going to.”

However, I am not in charge. I sold the option, and in doing so, I have had to let it go. I do see why the barest outline of our lives would make an appealing premise for a TV show, although I don’t think anyone should aim to make their lives sitcom fodder. (Once, in my first trimester, I suggested to Matt that we move into together to co-parent. “That sounds like a sitcom,” he said, dubiously. I dropped the idea immediately.) And remembering that Billie is not me is to the key to good mental health amid the weirdness of all this.

I wish Billie well, though. I wish Jenna Elfman well, too; she’s funny and warm and a deft physical comedian. Same for Claudia Lonow, the single mom who created and is executive producing the show. If they do well, I do well. If not? I’ll survive. I already have.

Photograph of retro woman on homepage by George Marks/Getty.