Maureen F. Mchugh's 'After The Apocalypse'

In the short story, “After the Apocalypse” by Maureen F. McHugh, Jane is trying her best to survive with her daughter. Jane despises her daughter however and would much rather survive on her own. It is clear throughout the story that the first chance that Jane can leave Franny, while knowing that she’ll be safe, she will. This is obvious if you look at the actions and emotions of Jane throughout the story.
Jane has always been very independent from a young age and having a child who is the complete opposite of her drives Jane crazy. Jane constantly compares her younger self to Franny and feels that she was better than Franny. “When she was fourteen, she was a decade older than Franny. Lived on the street for six weeks… Taught her to stand on her own two feet, which Franny wasn’t going to be able to do when she was twenty. Thirty, at this rate”(McHugh 171). Franny to her is just an annoying adolescent wait that doesn’t contribute to their survival at all. Of the course of the story this becomes a bigger and bigger problem to Jane that leads to her final decision.

She only returned home from Pasadena because she was pregnant. However, her parents forced Jane to get an abortion for the pregnancy. “She’d aborted the first pregnancy, brought home from Pasadena in shame”(McHugh 174). Jane's parents didn't teach her how a good parent was supposed to act and how they’re supposed to love their child no matter what. Not think of them as a useless being who is just dragging them down and making survival that much harder. Since Jane was never taught how to be a parent, I think this has a big attribute to her final decision to leave. She feels that she doesn’t know what to do with Franny and decides that they’d both be better off without each