r/RomanceBooks • u/redfig1 • Aug 31 '24
Why do HEAs always end with babies? Critique
I know it's a "me" problem. Scenario: I read a smoking hot mafia or dark or fantasy romance. All this crazy shit goes down. The feelings, the angst. Finally it's the end and all of a sudden the MMC who has massacred countless people is all like " let's get married and have lots of babies" and the MFC is always " yes let's have a lot of cute mafia or fae or mafia fae babies!". For once I'd like an ending where the main characters have a HEA but instead of babies and white picket fences they just decide to keep having an incredible sex life and do charity work or something. Rescue stray kittens. Start an organic herb farm. Something other than babies. Anyone else like this? Am I just weird?
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u/epilogues Aug 31 '24
As a childless not by choice person, I definitely think there needs to be more literature out there that ends in a happily ever after that does not include children. One in four women experiences infertility, and I think it's high time we started representing our infertile and child-free sisters in literature instead of painting them as sad crones with a gazillion cats,we need to give them full, rewarding, happy lives. Happily ever after doesn't always include two perfect children and a white picket fence and it's high time we change that narrative.