The Gift of the Non-Alibi

 In the film “Three Men and a Baby”, the character Jack Holden, along with his two young urban professional NYC roommates, struggle to find a solution to having to care for a child that Jack fathered out-of-wedlock, and that was suddenly dropped at their doorstep.

With his roommates now angry with him for this interference into their mostly self-indulgent lives, and with Jack, himself, suddenly finding a huge obligation where once was only freedom from almost all responsibility, Jack decides to appeal to his own mother to come and care for the child.

Upon introducing his mom to her new granddaughter, the two of them immediately bond as you would expect -

Jack:  “Oh, I'm in awe.  I mean, look at you.  You pick her up like a pro.”

Mrs. Holden:  (smiling warmly)  “I pick her up like a grandmother.  That's called experience.  Darling, let's see you.  She's so lovely. What's her name?”

“Mary.”

“Mary!  Well, Mary!  Look at the way she's looking at me.  For a moment, there, I had her laughing.”

“Yeah, just like me, huh?”

“Don't ruin this for me, Jack.”

“Oh, she adores you.  She knows that you're her grandmother.  It's like a biological thing, an instant connection.”

“Cut the crap, Jack.  What do you want?”

“Mom, I can't take care of her.  I don't know what to do.  I was hoping that you could take her for a little while, not forever. You know, until she's ready to vote?”

“Oh, I would love to.  Do you know, Jack, some people live all their lives...without having anything this wonderful to show for it?”

“I know, Mom.”

“I'm going to do the most wonderful thing for you (handing the baby back):  Absolutely nothing.”

“Why?”

“Jack, you've always run away from responsibility.  Now you have to turn and face it.”

“Mom... I'm a screw-up.”

“You were a screw-up.  Now you're a father, and you'll be a fine one.”

“Think so?”

“I know it.”

In that brief moment, the wise but courageous Mrs. Holden gives both her son and her new granddaughter the best gift she could give.  What Jack neglected to learn upon coming to the age which was once considered to be adulthood, he must now learn by drinking from the proverbial fire hose of life.

And, even if the dialogue might give one the impression that she really has all the confidence in the world in Jack, her stern treatment of him suggests that he has given her more than a little reason to doubt that.  It’s a risk, and she knows it.  But in her firm, single-minded, resolution, she shows great courage.  

Clearly she loves her granddaughter, and the temptation is definitely there.  But she’s smart enough to see how such intervention will almost certainly produce unintended consequences – for both of them.  

For the gift she gives will ensure that they will both grow up, and growing up is necessary in a sometimes-less-than accommodating world.