Oh My Baby (2020)

[Eboni Kleifgen]

Thisshort explainer outlines the historical events which led up to Platzspitz. Much of this comes from descriptions by the doctor and activist Andr Seidenberg; more is to be found on the Platzspitzbaby website, and still more is around Youtube in the form of SRF documentaries. My main references are listed at the end as usual.

1951 is the water mark for drug law. The Swiss Bundesrat implements the Betubungsmittelgesetz (Narcotics Law) and bans the the medicinal use of cocaine and heroin. They do this because of international pressure resulting from anti-drug scourge policies, especially in the USA. In Zurich only a few doctors and medical staff keep using opiates in private, along with a few dozen so-called morphinists based around Niederdorf.

The student riots of 1968 hit much harder in France and Germany than they do in Switzerland, but a counterculture grows out of it. Switzerland is remains extremely conservative in many ways. Users of psychedelics and weed are harshly stigmatized; drug use is seen as tied up to the blossoming anti-authoritarian left-wing counterculture, a rather self-fulfilling prophecy as the police crack down.

The AJZ (Autonomous Youth Centre of Zurich) springs up, the result of a decade of pressure on the stiflingly old-fashioned, bourgeois city. It soon begins sheltering addicts of the new drug in town, heroin, who are regarded as vermin by the agents of those repressive drug attitudes that have been building up.

In fact, the dominant paradigm from psychiatric authorities is abstinence. Cold turkey, goes the theory, is the only way for addicts to stop for good. We know now this is simply wrong. But the other paradigm, harm reduction, is very hard to get through. Voices against it are fuelled by ignorance and purity morality, hardened by decades of War on Drugs rhetoric from those earlier accords.

Finally, from 1986, the police decide to leave one small but important area of the city to the miscreants. They give up regular checks of the Platzspitzpark. The scene that settled there is to become the hell on earth of the opening scene of Platzspitzbaby.

What follows is the never-ending battle between junkie-turned-saviour versus evil lesbians and their child from hell. Mother enters the house and tries to rescue her baby from a wicker crib placed in the middle of the lounge. While effective in the first half, Baby gets repetitive after the Mother attempts to snatch the child for 15th time, the story going around in circles virtually unchanged. The narrative arc is just too flat.

I don't know what I was expecting from a Netflix version "The Baby-Sitters Club," of one of my favorite book series from childhood. Considering the track record of some of the best books of my youth being brought to screen (cough, "Artemis Fowl," cough), I was bracing for the worst.

How, for instance, would they translate author Ann M. Martin's original1980s and 90s books in 2020? Would they get actors who were actually middle-school-aged and skilled at acting? Would the often simple (but not simplistic) plots be replaced with "Riverdale"-like drama? Would the sense of joy and positivity be gone?

I needn't have worried. As brought to life by creator Rachel Shukert ("GLOW," "Supergirl"), "Baby-Sitters" is a near-perfect distillation of what made the book series sell millions of copies. The series (now streaming) is optimistic but not deluded, youthful but not juvenile and sweet but not mawkish. Its quintet of young actresses (the original four sitters and one mid-season addition) are talented beyond their years, but the dialogue never makes them sound like 40-year-old Hollywood scriptwriters.

If you're unfamiliar with the Gen X and Millennial touchstone novels, "Baby-Sitters" follows a group of four middle school girls, and sometimes other classmates, who run the titular sitting society in the fictional suburb of Stoneybrook, Connecticut. They meet three times a week and take calls for babysitting gigs. They are also the best of friends and adolescents going through struggles and change.

The series brings the young women to life in caring detail. There's Kristy Thomas (Sophie Grace), club founder and president, "norm-core," bossy and occasionally selfish; stylish New Yorker Stacey McGill (Shay Rudolph), boy crazy and afraid to reveal her diabetes diagnosis after being bullied; artistic and ecstatic Claudia Kishi (Momona Tamada), misunderstood by her grade-mongering parents; shy Mary Anne Spier (Malia Baker), recast in the show as biracial, whose overprotective white father struggles with anxiety after the death of her mother; and Dawn Schafer (Xochitl Gomez), an earthy California transplant who becomes the first new member of the club.

The best pop culture stories about children and teens understand that, though their problems and foibles seem trivial to adults whose middle school memories are fuzzy at best, in the throes of adolescence every test, every crush, every babysitting gig is of monumental importance.

"Baby-Sitters" gives gravitas as its sitters go through their individual episodes, tackling issues large and small. There's the mom who is late to relieve the sitter, or a math quiz that must be aced to attend a Halloween dance. But in the Netflix interpretation there is also a babysitting client misgendered by others, a grandparent who suffers a stroke and a summer camp rife with inequality. Although the book's classic telephone landline remains (the joke that explains it is apt), the content of the stories is not dated.

Like the books, most episodes are told from the perspective of one of the club members (a two-part season finale set at summer camp breaks the trend). The sensitivity and care with which the writers treat each girl's inner monologue is moving. The adult characters (played by delightful guest stars Alicia Silverstone, Mark Feuerstein and Marc Evan Jackson, among others) are just as well-drawn as their offspring. They're neither the distant authoritarians nor hacky stereotypes that often pop up in kids' media.

Sophia is officially the reigning queen of girls' names for the 11th year in a row! While the top 10 didn't change from last year, most names moved up or down. Aaliyah outdid Amelia and Mia, and Aria slipped behind Isabella. Most notably, Riley jumped up six spots. Riley is also the only name in the top 10 that doesn't end with the feminine "ah" sound. We'll keep an eye on girls' names ending with a "y" next year.

Here are the top baby names of the year according to the names of more than 550,000 babies born in 2020 to parents registered on BabyCenter. We combined spellings of similar names to find their true popularity. For ideas beyond the top 100, check out our baby name inspiration video, baby name polls, and themed name lists.

Emma Seligman's work features bisexual, lesbian, and queer characters very matter-of-factly, and I really appreciate how she doesn't need to have LGBTQ identity as the primary topic of her films. I love Bottoms (2023), but today I'd like to talk about her previous film, which has already been released on DVD overseas.

The protagonist, Danielle, is a bisexual woman about to graduate college, who goes to attend a shiva. Shiva is a seven-day period of mourning following a Jewish funeral; it's a tight community gathering of relatives, friends, and friends' relatives. Danielle is this jaded character who lies about working as a babysitter, while actually getting money from a sugar daddy; but as soon as she shows up at the shiva, her family are all treating her like a child. "So, have you found a boyfriend yet?" "You've gotten so skinny, are you eating properly?" They immediately start interrogating her about everything. She tries to shield herself, but just keeps getting sucked in deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. I get stressed out easily, so that aspect really resonated with me. All you're doing is just existing, but it's like the walls are closing in on you, that sort of feeling...

I really do end up feeling a lot of that pressure, so it's not a movie I can just casually sit down and rewatch, but it is a comedy ultimately. The first time I watched it was with a friend, both screaming at the screen together; the second time I watched it on my own. Danielle's ex-girlfriend and her sugar daddy (who turns out to be married) both show up at the shiva as well, and Danielle just keeps piling up lies higher and higher as she panics. I really empathized with that feeling of trying to keep her world under control and having everything just spiral, like, "Ahh, yeah, I'm like this all the time!" But it does have a warm, reassuring ending. I really enjoyed getting to draw that!

Why the sudden windfall? Since the first and second stimulus checks were based on your most recent tax return, any dependents born or adopted after filing were not included in stimulus eligibility, because they weren't "known" to the IRS at the time those checks were cut. (This means some parents of 2019 babies should expect additional stimulus money, too, if they didn't file a 2019 return in time.) This bonus stimulus money is in addition to the expanded Child Tax Credit and other tax breaks for parents, not to mention the amount your new baby could qualify for in a third round of stimulus payments. We'll tell you what you need to know and how to claim your missing money.

The third stimulus check will grant parents a maximum of $1,400 per qualifying dependent. But parents of babies born in 2020 are actually eligible for more than just this $1,400 check -- an extra $1,100 could be coming your way even if you don't qualify for the third check, as long as you met all the requirements for the first two stimulus checks. (Here are all the major differences between the first, second and third stimulus checks.)

There's a simple way to recoup missing stimulus money for qualified dependents -- any missing stimulus money, actually: File your 2020 tax return as soon as possible. In fact, your 2020 tax return is the mechanism for updating anything that has changed in your stimulus eligibility since the passing of the CARES Act. That's because once your 2020 return is on file, the IRS will use your new information to process future stimulus benefits. You can also set up direct deposit with the IRS when you file your return if you haven't already, to ensure you get your next stimulus check as quickly as possible.

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