<i> NOT</i> BRINGING UP ‘BABY’

The film “Baby Boom” is a cheat (“Satire That Lowers the ‘Baby Boom,’ ” by Kevin Thomas, Oct. 7).

The title and the entire ad campaign suggest that this is a film about how a baby affects the life of a working mother.

Not this mother. Halfway through the film, the baby becomes completely unimportant.

The script is concerned with the woman’s job, her home, her love life, her wealth, her status, her self! Who’s got time for a baby, when she’s so busy looking after No. 1?

The film is a fantasy about a woman who gets to have it all, including the moral satisfaction of thinking she turned down a chance to have it all. Don’t we all wish we could make such noble sacrifices?

I was surprised to find one fantasy the producers forgot to include. I’m amazed that Diane Keaton’s character didn’t go into business marketing the youth formula that kept her baby from aging over the course of the picture. Whatever the baby’s stay-young secret is, she could make a fortune selling it to her yuppie peers.

DAVID NATHAN

Los Angeles