I wanted to start my post off with “now I’m not saying Kathryn Janeway would be a bad mother,” but that’s a coward’s equivocation because that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Captain Janeway would be a bad mother. I’m sure any kid she had would adore her, as she did her father, but she’s a high-ranking military official with a known tendency to overwork herself. She is known to sacrifice relationships with important people in her life and has a stubborn habit of believing she’s always in the right (because, admittedly, history has often shown that she is).
I’m sorry, but that woman is not designed to get married, have a baby, and life an idyllic life aboard a starship that allows families. She is designed to show up an hour late to the function bearing ridiculously expensive bottles of wine, ruffle the hair of all the youngsters, and leave at precisely the time considered polite because she has a project she “really should be working on.”
Maybe, when she gets home to her classy Irish residence on the cliff-side, she will spare a moment to gaze wistfully at the Janeway family photo, trace her fingers over the faces of Phoebe’s daughters and think, “Ah, but what if…?”
But that’s IT. That woman ain’t raising any baby she can’t hand over to its legal guardian after a few hours.
