Mad Men left a lot of questions unanswered, and chief among them is whatever happened to Peggy Olson and Pete Campbell's secret baby? Unlike its fellow smash hit series Breaking Bad, the finale of Matthew Weiner's soapy drama Mad Men didn't offer an explanation for all the loose ends left by the show's many plot lines. Throughout its seven-season run, the period drama won over critics and audiences alike by refusing to offer easy answers for the many moral predicaments which its cast faced. Instead, Mad Men explored their rich internal lives with grace and unflinching honesty. The series had the potential to follow many of these further, but what Mad Men's spin-offs would have looked like was left to the viewer's imagination as the show ended on an intentionally ambiguous note.

Many Mad Men fans were nonetheless desperate to know more about some of these abandoned plots, and for good reason. A lot of Mad Men's storylines, such as the secret baby which Elizabeth Moss' Peggy gave birth to at the close of season 1, were dramatic and impactful enough for viewers to never let go of their ambiguous endings. It's not necessarily surprising that Mad Men never returned to the story of Peggy and Pete (Vincent Kartheiser)'s secret baby, as the show often used plots like this to indirectly address social issues of the series' era.

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However, the fate of Peggy and Pete's child can be gleaned by carefully re-watching the brief season 2 scenes in which their affair is mentioned. There's the flashback to Peggy's traumatic time in the hospital, a scene which closes on characteristically harsh advice from Don Draper (Jon Hamm). He tells Peggy to forget it ever happened, the significance of which is clarified when Peggy finally confronts Pete at the end of season 2. She informs Pete of their baby's existence, telling him she gave the child up for adoption. That's the last mention Mad Men makes of their baby, but some historical context can clarify what might've really happened.

Peggy Was Part of The Baby Scoop Era

Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson in Mad Men

Mad Men season 1 takes place during the Baby Scoop era. The show's writing was always impressive, with Mad Men delivering great plot twists and strong character arcs, so it's not like the writers would have struggled to offer this historical context. Mad Men featured real-life historical occurrences from the murder of Martin Luther King Jr to the Cuban Missile Crisis, but life for unmarried pregnant people during the Baby Scoop Era may have been too dark for even Mad Men. During this time, religious orders exerted far more power than they do nowadays thanks to their custodianship of schools and hospitals. As a result, moral guardians such as nuns often decided whether or not a pregnant person was "fit" for motherhood. More often than not, their decision to have pre-marital sex was seen as evidence that they were "unfit" to be a parent, and it was common for nuns to take children from unwed mothers.

Like Moss' later character in the liberally adapted The Handmaid's Tale, Peggy's gender leaves her powerless in this unfair social system. The odds are Peggy was less involved in the decision to give the child up than her confident statement to Pete suggests. Viewers who know how single mothers were treated at the time can discern that Peggy most likely had little option but to give the child up. Looked down on and mistreated, the Baby Scoop Era's mothers had no say in their child's fate. In the sixties alone, 2 million children were put up for adoption before access to contraception and abortion brought the Baby Scoop era to an end.

The REAL Reason Peggy Gave Up Her Baby

Pete and Peggy in Mad Men

The Baby Scoop Era offers one reason Peggy may not have been able to hold on to her baby even if she wanted to, but the socio-economic realities of the time illuminate another reason. Peggy couldn't have afforded to raise a child and would have ended her career if she attempted to. Mad Men was inspired by a real ad agency, and the show was never shy about exploring the industry's darker side.

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Peggy's ambition is clear from the show's first episode onwards, but her professional rise is portrayed as a realistically difficult achievement. Her unplanned pregnancy is a perfect example of the hardships faced by working women of the era. Despite how she later chooses to frame the occurrence to Pete, getting pregnant wasn't really her choice, nor she wasn't prepared to be a mother. Peggy had little financial security and Pete was married, not to mention the fact that his personality makes it likely he would deny that the baby is his. Professional and financial insecurity, along with social pressure and a lack of support, would have made it all-but-impossible for Peggy to start a family alone even if she wanted to.

Peggy's Baby Story Adds To Mad Men's Family Theme

Mad Men Peggy Olson and Pete Campbell

Child actors were a difficult reality for the series, which is why Mad Men's Bobby Draper was recast three times. But the show could have accommodated the presence of Peggy and Pete's baby if putting the child up for adoption didn't fit Mad Men's most important recurring theme. Mad Men is about unwanted children, who create a contrast between the idealized American family and the more common experience of broken family relationships. Don had a difficult childhood as an "unwanted" child and in turn, often ignored his children. It's no wonder he informs Peggy "it'll be like it never happened", as he knows how easily unwanted children can be forgotten. Joan even offers to give up her child to be with a man.

This scene, like Don's childhood and Peggy's baby, makes explicit the show's underlying theme that it's impossible to raise a child in a cold corporate environment and unsparing economy that expects potential parents to devote their lives to their jobs instead of family. Sure, viewers may know what happens to Don Draper in the Mad Men series finale, but the fate of Peggy and Pete's baby was left even more ambiguous for good reason. Like Don himself, Joan's child, and countless others, their baby is one of many casualties of an uncaring social and cultural climate that Mad Men refuses to romanticize or glamourize (despite the admittedly slick fashions). The series depicts Peggy moving on with her life not because she never wanted children but because that's what disempowered people are forced to do when religious pressure, a lack of social support, and a cut-throat industry make parenthood impossible.

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