From Boardroom to Baby Bottles: What ‘Baby Boom’ Teaches Us About Reinventing Success

What happens when you’re at the peak of your corporate career, where you don’t have time for love, marriage and children, including yourself and suddenly, out of the blue, you get a call where you’re informed that you’ve inherited a baby! How do you react and respond to such bizarre news in your life?

Well, that’s precisely what happens with JC Wiatt, a dynamic and driven corporate woman. What happens next is a journey that many of us women (and even men) will relate to. A film made in 1987 about the challenges of a working woman, and 38 years later, it is surprising that this film is still so relevant.

The film welcomes you with a narration… “53% of America’s workforce is female. As little girls, they were told to marry doctors and lawyers; instead, they grew up and became doctors and lawyers…sociologists say the new working woman is a phenomenon of our time.”

As the narration introduces the female lead, our protagonist JC Wiatt – a graduate from Yale and Harvard, with a corner office, works long hours, earns a six-figure salary and is known as the ‘Tiger Lady’. Married to her job, she lives with an investment banker who shares her passion for collecting African artefacts and leads a deeply independent life. Total wow factor, isn’t it? Well… just wait.

Baby Boom (1987) – a Gem waiting to be rediscovered

I’m so glad I watched Baby Boom (1987), starring one of my favourite actors, the ever-so-gorgeous and elegant Diane Keaton.

So, Baby Boom is something out of the ordinary. This film, made in 1987, is such a brave attempt, ahead of its time and even so relevant today.

Had I watched this film when I was in my 20s, what would my perspective have been?

I cannot imagine that this gem of a film, which is also a Golden Globe nominee, was somewhere tucked away among the host of film titles on Amazon Prime. Thank you, Amazon Prime, for such brilliant collectable films that can be watched every other time.

Meet the ‘Tiger Lady’

The story is about JC Wiatt, played by none other than our gorgeous Diane Keaton. She’s a highly successful and driven corporate woman, working 12-14 hours a day, if not more. Her partner, an equally driven and successful man… they don’t even remotely think of marrying as they’re both totally, more than 100% focused on their respective careers.

JC’s pace is fast; she’s razor sharp, focused, and driven. She gets offered the position of a partner by a senior board member as a CEO, provided she doesn’t end up getting married and having children, as there’s no room for personal commitments, let alone quiet moments of rest. She jumps at the offer and the fantastic journey that so many women would have dreamt of someday – to be a successful corporate/ working/ business woman.

The call that changed her life

Until one fine night, she gets a call from England that a long-lost cousin of hers had tragically passed away in an accident and had left ‘something’ in her will. Since it was not very audible, Wiatt couldn’t grasp everything the lady spoke over the phone. Still, she understood she had to be at the airport the very next morning to sign a document for the ‘handover’.

And as luck would have it, she had close to 40 minutes left in her power meeting with a stakeholder. She gets handed a cherub of a little baby girl (instead of a million dollars), with soft golden curls, gleaming button eyes and rosy lips and cheeks – nothing could stop anyone from cuddling that little baby girl in a red frock. And Wiatt goes, “I can’t have a baby because I have a 12:30 lunch meeting.”

While JC awkwardly tries to ‘handle’, I mean ‘carry’ the baby, she is totally flabbergasted. She has no clue what hit her. She’s clearly not maternal material and definitely has no room, let alone intentions, to raise a baby. With numerous failed attempts to diaper the baby correctly, to trying to feed her pasta, little Elizabeth chooses to adorn the walls with the red sauce and after a series of so called ‘disaster meetings’ with her bosses, and her partner walking out on her as he is not ready nor has the heart or room for a child in their relationship as he’s too committed to his work – this is what happened to Wiatt with the arrival of a baby in her life.

You’ll often find her as the only woman in the boardroom meeting, pitching to the stakeholders. If she’s a bit late to a meeting, the others look at their watch. You watch her sit, ideate, and work while baby Elizabeth is playing in the sandpit. It reflects how dedicated she is. She starts attending brilliant kids workshops to make her child ‘smart’… she tries to balance it all! They ask her to involve a junior, only to replace her with him eventually. She walks in one day and finds that she has been replaced – just like that!

As in her account, this is too important to take any risk, and she’s changed, even though they got the account because of Wiatt. Her boss tells her that she’s changed, she’s lost her concentration, she’s become ‘soft’! While putting her on a smaller account, he asks her to ‘swallow her pride’, even though it is a low-profile account, so that she can spend more time with the baby; and that, she can’t have it all! The boss takes pride in not knowing how many grandchildren he has, but he has grown the company to over $200 billion a year, as ‘something’s got to give’. He tells her, ‘It is okay to slow down as nobody’s keeping score!’ since Wiatt couldn’t accept a lower account. Her boss tells her, ‘So do what you have to do,’ leaving her with only silence.

My heart broke as I saw her step out with her belongings, and she took a moment to sit down on the steps and feel devastated. I’m sure many of us have felt that too. I have personally gone through this, and this scene was like a déjà vu.

The metamorphosis

Like I said initially, had I watched this film in my 20s, I probably would have had a different opinion. But watching this now, the entire narrative was different. I could relate to all of Wiatt’s helplessness, reading manuals, not knowing how to begin, where to start, or even how to close the loose ends. Her frantic search and numerous failed attempts for a reliable nanny, oh dear. Haven’t many of us mums gone through this?

The juggling act of a working mum

Even so, the corporate woman in her took over. She nearly gives Elizabeth up for adoption, but embraces her within seconds, as she had fallen in love with Elizabeth, who took her back in her arms and in her heart.

While JC did her best to balance work, home and baby, the same colleagues, staff, and seniors started to give her the looks as if she’s down with the plague – the look was that having a child is a crime, a handicap.

Her attempts to attend meetings and calls, with a baby in hand, started to gnaw and make people at her workplace uncomfortable. Gradually, she started getting sidelined by a young male executive, who eventually took over her role and her account that she had so painstakingly created from scratch. Despite negotiating and trying to make her boss understand, she was just not heard. Finally, Wiatt had to resign as there was no room for her in the coveted corner corporate office. She was offered a less prestigious account, which was essentially a demotion, with the pretext that she could spend more time with her baby.

JC’s life flipped overnight—from boardroom brilliance to baby bottles and bedtime stories. Her transformation is messy, hilarious, and deeply moving.

Is this relatable even now?

So many of us will find this relatable. We’ve had managers who would scoff at our team when one of the women requested a short-term work-from-home arrangement as her daughter was appearing for her 10th board exams. It was a crucial phase for her child. My manager’s response, “Why doesn’t her husband work from home instead? If you talk about gender-equality, even should stay back at home!”

Was the work being impacted? No. The team member was available on call. She was committed to balancing work and her child. As a team lead/ manager, do we get to decide how she raises her child? Of course not. But we’ve received so much unsolicited parenting advice from my male bosses – and whenever I would casually ask, how do they ‘manage’ and ‘balance’ family and children?

Their responses would be, “Oh, I live with my parents, so they take care of our kids while I come to work, and my wife is a teacher, so she’s back by 3pm.” Another response was “My wife works from home!” And my mind would go, “Hmm… parenting advice from them?”

And don’t miss the unsolicited parenting advice that I’ve heard from my managers, “This is the problem with nuclear families, you don’t live with your parents or they don’t live with you to take care of your child.” Wait, it gets even better (pun intended, of course), “Teach your daughter to stay alone, she’s pretty grown up now!”, when I requested to leave for home early, so that I could log in from home and be there for my daughter, who was in Grade 5, as my husband was travelling for work.

Life falling apart for fall in place?

After quitting her dream job, something she had always wanted to do and felt she was cut out for, Waitt moved to the countryside with baby Elizabeth. Was it a dreamy montage? Not all, with the plumbing breaking down and no water or no heater, freezing in the harsh winters, with absolutely zero social life – she tries her best to embrace the slow country life. From plucking apples to fruits and vegetables, and finally during winter, she starts making tons of apple sauce for Elizabeth.

With a couple of mental breakdowns, she almost decides to quit her dream of living in the country and head back to New York as she misses the high-octane New York life, the rush, the job, the money – but then two things happen. One, she ends up at a handsome young veterinarian clinic during a mental breakdown. With time, we find that he respects her for who she is and not the independent ‘Tiger Lady’. He falls in love with her in all her mess, in figuring it all out and watches her become an entrepreneur as she roughs it out in the country.

And the next best thing that happens to JC is when city people visiting her town loved her simple yet elegantly packed batch of homemade apple sauce at a grocery store, and that planted the entrepreneurial seed in her.

Embracing being a mompreneur 

She starts a small unit from home, hires the locals and sets up a small factory that supports the local farms. Within months, she launches ‘Country Baby Apple Sauce’, a brand to be reckoned with. Despite initial hiccups where shops were not keen on stocking her product, she sells those jars at an offer price: “Buy 1, Get 5 Free.” Her homemade apple sauce becomes an overnight sensation among new mothers, and stores start accepting her product. She nailed the perfect sweet spot – helping fellow mums with a homemade quality product that will make their lives a little better.

What began as a survival approach, making apple sauce for Elizabeth, soon blossomed into a thriving business. JC tapped into her corporate acumen to build a brand that resonates with mothers across America.

her with a “Welcome back.” She gets a place in the boardroom where she once stood to pitch to clients, and this time, the tables have turned. The board members mention that in usual cases they have to lead the client by hand, but they know they’re dealing with a ‘savvy business woman’. The board expressed their desire to acquire Country Baby as it is an untapped food business that they wanted to profit from. Yet, they talked about all her shortcomings, including how she works with an inexperienced staff, and how she needs help to scale up. The board mentions they ‘would like to change’ all that and that they want to see Country Baby in every supermarket in the US.

Her boss takes over, mentioning that she ‘may be harbouring ill will’, and that ‘she’s a big girl now’ and what happened between them is ‘strictly water under the bridge’.

And Wiatt replies, “Well, it’s water under the bridge, depending on how good your offer is!” Smart, right? And the boss replies, “I told you she’ll play hardball”, to an awkward board member and team. And yet another brilliant response by Wiatt, “I learnt it from you, Fred.” Making them all uncomfortable, yet with dignity, putting them in place.

While reviewing the proposal, the company wanted to acquire Country Baby for $3 million in cash and relocate its base of operations to the city, so the company could oversee every aspect of Country Baby’s production. Naturally, they want to retain her services as a Chief Operating Officer with a base salary of $350,000 a year, including a bonus of 150% of her salary, an apartment, and a six-week vacation – a dream offer, right? And she replies, “That’s it?” and makes everyone nervous again. She takes a moment to process the information and leaves the room for a few minutes “Save my seat.”

Will she take the offer?

Will she take it? Well… this is the thing. She has a moment of victory cheer in the bathroom, and as she walks back to the boardroom, something changes. As she opens the doors to the boardroom and addresses the members that she’ll have to pass, her answer is ‘No’. Country Baby is not for sale, and she’d like to be where she belongs. The board members feel it is all that has happened in the past; she’s declining the offer, just missing the point entirely.  

She says, “… I’m not the Tiger Lady anymore. I have a crib in my office and a mobile on my desk, and I really like that.” JC further adds that she was told that she’ll have to make sacrifices, and she doesn’t want to, and nobody should have to make those sacrifices. She further adds, “To be honest with you, I’m doing pretty well on my own. To be frank, if you can put Country Baby in every supermarket in the country, so can I!” And what hits the nail in the coffin is this – “I’m sorry, but the rat race has to survive with one less rat.”

Rewriting your narrative

What stood out in this film is how she rewrote her narrative. She hadn’t figured it all out. She had her moments of low, did that make her weak? Well, she may have had her moments of weakness after losing her job, but that did not define her as a weak person or a loser.

• Was it easy embracing motherhood? Of course not!
• Was it easy relocating to her dream home in the countryside? Of course not!
• But she took the risk. She was subjected to failures, dejection, and rejection from her partner, bosses, and colleagues at work.
• Was it easy to give up a successful, fast-paced life in a big, happening city? Of course not.
• Was it easy to live in the countryside where time moves at a snail’s pace? Of course not.

She almost gave up, but then met a wonderful man who really loved her with all the mess she came with – a mental breakdown and a very embarrassing first meeting at his clinic.  He did not try to control the outcome when she went to New York for the meeting. He let her make her own decisions. He did not put any conditions on their relationship.

Gradually, she tried to change her narrative by focusing on what she was good at – market research, branding, and consumer insights – tapping into her strengths and making Country Baby Apple Sauce a household name in the US.

If you liked this review, you may also like to read The Scrapbook of Possibilities: A Film That Makes You Rethink Life and Rethinking Success: What This Netflix Movie Teaches About Career & Purpose.

Why choose The Write Compass
I always thought that I’d be an entrepreneur or a corporate woman, with my name in Forbes Magazine. I will, maybe I won’t, but if I don’t even try, the chances of not getting there would be almost nil.

But here’s the thing, rewriting our narrative to a better one, how to meander our way around failures – it takes time. It needs a gentle nudge from someone who can relate to your challenges.

At The Write Compass, I help you rewrite your narrative—just like JC did. Whether you’re navigating motherhood, career shifts, or self-doubt, I’ll walk beside you to uncover your strengths and chart a path that’s truly yours.