update, edited for brevity
Matthew Yglesias says Knocked Up and Judd Apatow’s new one, Funny People, offer “a bracingly conservative vision of family life and obligation.”
I can’t remember anything specifically conservative about Knocked Up except the decision not to have an abortion. All the other stuff — such as holding down a job — is pretty well disseminated thru the rest of the population.
I think it’s very, very dumb to decide not to have an abortion on the grounds that life is a marvelous, multifarious thing and you must roll on its waves toward your unknown destiny. From what I’ve seen, having a kid can bring a whole lot of anger and frustration into your life if you’re not ready to give yourself to your kid’s needs. And if you’re afloat on the idea that producing another life is a good way to goose up yours, then probably you’re not in a giving frame of mind.
To quote Homer Simpson- "Children are the future, if we don't stop them now!"
It's a sure sign of impending divorce when people have kids in order to save their marriage. Whatever else children do, superheroically rescuing marriages is not one of them.
In fact, in a factoid I've always found particularly horrifying, in cases of spousal abuse, the abuse is statistically most likely to start when the woman becomes pregnant. In other words, if you're relationship is bad, having a kid has a decent chance of pushing it over the edge into downright horrible.