Parenting & Family Quote by Jackie Collins

Jackie Collins lands the punchline where polite society least wants it: on the sentimental story men tell about themselves. The setup is almost wholesome, a late-life vow of presence - "Now I can spend time with my baby" - the kind of line that begs to be admired as tender, redemptive, proof of personal growth. Collins immediately punctures it with a corrosive aside: "Oh yeah, I bet your other family is really thrilled". The wit isn't just in the sarcasm; it's in the abrupt reappearance of the people the narrative tries to erase.

Her intent is social surgery. Collins is exposing a double standard in how male desire and neglect get repackaged as romance, while the collateral damage is assigned to women and children to absorb quietly. The subtext is that "baby" isn't innocence here, it's entitlement - a pet name that launders a history of abandonment into something cute. By pointing to "another family who's grown", she draws attention to time as evidence: you don't accidentally miss an entire childhood.

Context matters because Collins made a career out of glamor with teeth, writing about power, sex, and hypocrisy in worlds where image management is a survival skill. This line fits her broader project: treating infidelity and serial reinvention not as spicy plot twists but as moral accounting. It's also a critique of the culture that applauds the returning husband without asking who paid for his absence. Collins doesn't moralize; she mocks. That sting is the point.