“Live fast. Die young. Leave a good-looking corpse.” – Originally from Knock on Any Door. Also, motto of the Pagans motorcycle gang.
...there was a lot of scurrying around and trying to “look busy.” But apart from that, we’re told that God instructed Adam and Eve to “Be fruitful and multiply.” (Genesis 1:28) If He ever countermanded that dictum (“Okay, that’s enough multiplying. You can stop now. Please!”) the Bible doesn’t record it.
It doesn’t really matter whether you take the Bible literally as the Word of God. (I don’t. It was written by men. They may have been divinely inspired, but they weren’t God Himself.) Reproduction, like survival, is hard-wired into our natures. It takes a lot of disincentive to suppress that impulse.
Youth culture plus feminism have provided that disincentive, in quantity.
Youth culture strikes me as the ultimately self-defeating agenda. It literally cannot be fulfilled. Except for those like the persons in the quote at the top of this screed, we will get old. Our bodies will age and weaken. Our faces will wrinkle. And of course, one way or another, we’ll die. All of us. (Yes, you too, Gentle Reader, though I hate to think it.)
Feminism, once severed from its Susan B. Anthony / Elizabeth Cady Stanton egalitarian roots, coupled to the perversity of youth culture with a tragic synergy. It made women neglect their characters and personalities in favor of obsessive concentration on their bodies and faces. Though it’s seldom labeled as such, that is actually a variety of gluttony.
It also made women averse to child-bearing.
This is of particular interest to me just now, owing to my current novel-in-progress.
The possibility of a complete worldwide cessation of child-bearing was broached by the late P. D. James in her quasi-apocalyptic novel The Children of Men. James narrates the consequences for Britain in her usual adroit, subtly gripping manner. It’s a powerful story, well worth reading, though the premise that one day human fertility just ends is rather fanciful.
Dreams of Days Forsaken revolves around two core ideas: a worldwide decline in birthrates, partly due to a plague of infertility; and the invention of a wholly automated artificial womb. The personal, institutional, and geopolitical consequences would be dramatic, to say the least. I hope my tale delivers on them.) Though I don’t go very deeply into them in the novel, I’m mesmerized by the incentives The Womb would offer to women:
- Those whose marriages are endangered by infertility, whether voluntary or otherwise;
- Those determined to protect their bodies and careers from pregnancy and parturition.
For there’s no question about it: child-bearing changes a woman. It changes her body, of course, but it also changes her drives. The new person in her life must become a part of her priority structure. Other individuals in that structure will be affected. So will any organizations in which the new mother is a participant.
Herewith, three vignettes about women whose thinking is being altered, none too subtly, by the prospect of The Womb:
Susan read the employment contract carefully. Her prior experiences with such things had convinced her that they deserve special scrutiny.
She found herself willing to accept its terms until she came to the clause titled Standards Of Performance. It didn’t take her long to find the scorpion’s sting. She looked up at her interviewer. The gray haired matron’s face was impassive. Her hands were steepled before her.
“What about pregnancy?” Susan said.
The interviewer raised an eyebrow. “What about it?”
“The performance clause makes no provision for it. A gravid woman could never sustain the kind of performance specified here.”
The interviewer’s nod skirted the edge of perceptibility.
Adam wants children.
So do I.
“I think…” She paused. “Under current labor law, this contract is challengeable at the very least.”
The interviewer’s smile did not touch her eyes. “Perhaps.”
But I’d have to sign it and commit to its terms to find out, wouldn’t I?
“I don’t think I can agree to this, Ma’am.”
“A shame,” the interviewer said. “Your experience and references made you one of our top picks for this position. But the contract is a condition of employment. Best of luck with your job search.”
The interviewer rose and held out a hand. Susan passed the stapled pages back to her, rose in her turn, and slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder.
“Well, thank you for your time.”
The interviewer did not offer to shake hands or see her out.
Adam was nonplussed.
“Really?” he said. “I thought contracts like that died with the Nineteenth Century.”
“Apparently not.” Susan sipped at her rapidly cooling coffee. “They wouldn’t back away from it, either.”
“‘They?’”
“Sorry, my interviewer. An older woman. Perfectly polite and pleasant, but there was no give in her at all.”
“Damn. I know this was the one you wanted.” He refilled his mug and took his habitual seat at their kitchen table. “Well, what’s next?”
She shrugged. “Keep looking. Engineering shops don’t all require labor contracts. Anyway, this is the first one I’ve hit.”
Adam didn’t answer. He’d gotten the faraway look she knew meant that he’d gone into problem-solving mode. She clamped her lips tightly together.
Wait it out, Suzy Creamcheese.
“Do you really want that job?” he said at last.
“I… did,” she said, “before I read the contract. I don’t think so now.”
“But what if we could finesse our way around the contract?”
She peered at him. “What are you thinking?”
“The Womb.”
Her hackles went up at once. “Nope. Never.”
He frowned. “Why not?”
“Think about it! No pregnancy means no antibodies for the baby and no lactation from me. He’d be vulnerable to a thousand nearly extinct diseases and bottle-fed from the instant of his, uh, birth. Plus, I wouldn’t get the health bonus women get from going through pregnancy.”
Or the maternal bond from having him inside me for nine months. Peg said it’s real, and after five kids she’ll know. And I want it!
Adam’s expression had gone flat. “There might be ways to compensate.”
“Do you know of any?” Despite her effort to control it, her temper had risen. “This is our child and my life we’re talking about. I’m already thirty-two. He might be the only child we’ll ever have!”
For sure it’s the only life I’ll ever have.
“Besides,” she continued, “I want to be home with a new baby. The performance clause didn’t mention any reduction in standards for the post-partum period. The mandated leave is only twelve weeks. I could return from maternity leave and get fired for substandard performance a couple of weeks later.”
“A lawsuit…” he said, and trailed off.
“Forget it. A company like that will have lawyers up the wazoo. They might even have fought this battle before.”
Her husband appeared stricken. She could sense the but on his tongue, barely restrained by his lips.
She blinked and bore down to fight off a sudden rush of tears.
“I have to chalk this one up and keep looking,” she said.
“You don’t have any other possibilities lined up?”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“What about that place back East that cold-called you?”
“You mean Arcologics?” He nodded. “We’d have to move and you’d need a new job.”
“Don’t they have a marketing department?”
Not if Iverson is as smart as everybody says.
“I don’t think so.”
“Damn.”
Adam’s gaze remained hooded for the rest of the evening. Susan knew The Womb was still uppermost in his thoughts… as it was in hers.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Laura’s three years as the Hanford Agency’s top model had not prepared her for Bill Hanford’s explosion.
“Are you out of your mind?”
She gaped at him, all the words blown out of her.
“I can’t believe you’re even considering it,” he said. “It wouldn’t be ‘just for a few months,’ stupid. No matter how carefully you restored your figure, it would change everything. Your tits, your skin tension, your posture, the way you move and hold yourself. It would ruin you for anything but fully clothed, and we have practically no demand for that. Are you willing to throw away the rest of your career for a baby?”
“My career…” She faltered.
“Indianapolis might not be the big time, but damn it, girl, you own this city. This state!” He turned away and started to pack up his equipment. His movements were staccato, jerky and angry, uncharacteristic for such a poised photographer. It was plain that she had unsettled him. “You want to leave all that on the table for some other girl to pick up just so you can have a baby?”
She could not answer him. But I want a baby was the only thought her mind could hold. He fulminated silently as he packed the rest of his equipment. She shed her bikini and resumed her street clothes. They left the studio silent and empty behind them.
Carlos was not pleased.
“He’s right,” she said. “I asked around. Models don’t… come back from pregnancy.”
“So no son,” he muttered. His arms were crossed like swords over his chest.
She hung her head.
“We have to choose, love,” she said. “Besides, without my income—”
“Is that what matters to you? More than a family?” His Salvadoran accent became more pronounced.
I don’t want to go back to the escort service.
“We wouldn’t be able to meet our bills without it.”
He scowled at her. “Yes we could. You know it.”
I don’t want you to go back to dealing, either.
“Carlos,” she said, “I want a baby as much as you do. But we have to be practical.” She rose from her seat at the kitchen table, but she did not dare to approach him. “You came this close to going to prison. The cops had you dead to rights. You were lucky that they were so sloppy. The chain-of-custody issue the D.A. missed was the only thing your lawyer had to work with, even if that was enough to spring you. Don’t you think the cops will have their eyes on you now? I may not want to end my modeling career, but I want to raise a baby alone even less!”
He glared, but he had no comeback for her.
A protracted, tension-laden silence ended when he muttered “I must think about this,” grabbed his windbreaker, and stalked out of the apartment. She wandered loosely around their home, uncertain what to do next, until the phone rang and Jill Timman invited her to join her at their favorite after-work watering hole.
“He’s furious.” Laura swished her swizzle stick idly through her pina colada.
“He’s a tough cookie.” Jill smirked. “But so are you. Stick to your guns, girl. It’s your body and your career.” She looked up and scanned the other patrons in the crowded bistro. “I don’t see anyone who has more right to make those decisions than you do. Not for you, at least.”
“What if he decides he wants a son more than he wants me?”
Jill shrugged. “Then you lose him. So?” She paused for a sip from her Cosmopolitan. “You’ve been together what, eight months?” Laura nodded. “Don’t you think you’d find someone else fast enough?”
Laura swallowed past her fear.
She doesn’t know. Keep it that way.
“I know, Jill. ‘Always more fish in the sea.’ I could find someone else. But it’s hard. It’s tiring. I’m tired all the time as things are now. And…”
Jill nodded in sympathy.
“And you love him.”
“I… think I do.”
“So?” The model-turned-event-planner grinned. “What about The Womb?”
Helen stripped off her apron and tossed it into the back seat before slumping into her car. Ten hours on her feet left her exhausted. It would have done the same to anyone. But her tuition was due at the end of the month, and she’d be damned before she’d let the water and electrical utilities send her any dunning letters.
She cranked the engine, waited for it to settle into a smooth purr, pulled onto Grand Avenue, and drove through the darkness toward her Amherst Estates apartment.
At least I know I’ll come home to a clean flat and a hot meal.
Alicia was a clean freak of the best kind. Rather than see a domestic chore done imperfectly, she’d take it upon herself. She’d assumed their apartment’s cleaning and cooking duties immediately upon moving in. It was a great part of why Helen was happy to support the two of them.
Well, that and that she thinks my stretch marks are cute. And how good she is with her tongue.
Theirs was a no-bullshit relationship. They liked each other well enough, but there was no love talk between them, and no mutterings about marriage. Alicia stayed for Helen’s support, and would do so as long as Helen would maintain her in an acceptable style. Helen was willing to pay the bills, and would do so as long as the sexy Latina’s attentions to her needs remained enthusiastic and unflagging.
It’s just these down periods between surrogacies that spit in the soup. But I have to have them. The agency wouldn’t have it any other way.
At first, surrogacy had provided Helen a more-than-comfortable living plus substantial savings. With Alicia’s arrival, her lifestyle had swelled to include luxuries and pleasures she’d never before indulged. Helen suspected that an attempt to return to her prior, more modest standard of living would endanger their arrangement. She was too accustomed to Alicia’s services to risk that.
I can’t take another contract until March. I can hardly wait. Until then it’s short skirts, high heels, “Are you ready to order, sir?” and “Is everything satisfactory, ma’am?” Ten hours a day, six days a week. Dear God.
Well, my feet haven’t fallen off yet.
As she turned into the parking lot for the residents of the two Amherst buildings along Arnulfson Way, she noticed that Alicia’s car was not in its assigned spot. She frowned.
Did she go shopping?
She unlocked her apartment door and stepped inside. Her gaze arrowed to the answering machine nestled in the entryway bookcase. The messages light was flashing steadily. She pressed the Play button.
BEEP! “Miss Riordan, this is Marion Michaels at Dreams Fulfilled. Due to recent technological developments, we’re experiencing a retrenchment in our in-vitro and surrogacy operations. In consequence, we don’t expect to engage you as a host mother this coming year. Thank you for your services to this date. You have our best wishes for your continued success.” BEEP!
The messages light went out and the machine fell silent.
Helen was still gawking at it when Alicia returned.
“It’s the Womb, babe.” Alicia forked up a bite of roast beef, chewed and swallowed. “If it works as advertised, host mothers will go the way of buggy-whip factories.” She glanced at Helen’s untouched plate. “Aren’t you eating?”
Helen forced a smile. “Waiting for my stomach to settle.”
“Oh. It hit you that hard, eh?”
Helen nodded. “Second semester tuition is due soon. It’ll clean me out. If I can’t bag a surrogacy, I don’t know how I’ll pay for my junior year.”
Alicia shoveled up some peas. “Can’t you promote your services on your own?”
“I’ve never tried it. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Ah. Could you use social media?”
Helen shook her head. “They don’t accept ads about anything related to sex.”
Alicia grinned. “But there’s no sex involved.”
“They don’t see it that way. They nix anything that even hints at it, to stay out of trouble with the law.”
“Well…” Alicia laid down her fork and sat back. “You have other things to sell.”
“Hm? What are you—”
“If the Womb really works,” Alicia said, “new industries will spring up around it. New markets. So think sideways. You were selling space in your uterus. What else have you got that the Womb might make marketable, you gorgeous five-foot-nine, hundred and fifteen pound blue-eyed blonde with a killer figure and a one-forty IQ?”
Helen started to answer, bit it back.
“Maybe the genes that gave you that stuff might prove marketable,” Alicia said.
“Maybe…” Helen pondered it, shuddered. “But I’d have to let a man put his thing in me.”
“Not necessarily, babe.” Alicia’s expression turned sly. “You’ve got plenty of eggs, don’t you?”
“Yeah… wait a minute! If they’re so valuable, how come Dreams Fulfilled never offered to buy any?”
Alicia shrugged. “Did you ever hint that you were open to the idea?”
It stopped Helen’s thought process for a second time.
Is it legal to sell ova in New York? Was Michaels waiting for me to suggest that mine were available?
“You… might have something there.” Helen picked up her fork to address her dinner, set it down again. “Maybe the first move has to be mine.” She beamed at her housemate. “Thanks!”
“De nada. Eat!”
Helen chuckled and picked up her fork again. “Yeah.”
She’s smarter than I realized.
How did she know about my IQ?
We don’t have The Womb today, but it’s in prospect. There are teams working on developing one as you read this. Don’t kid yourself: feminism plus youth culture would play into the reactions to such a development. If it were to be made price-competitive with the costs of pregnancy plus childbirth, it would be a powerful influence.
And with that, we return to contemporary reality.
There’s been a resurgence of interest in what might be called prewar femininity: i.e., the model for female decision making held up to them by their mothers, which was followed by most. Marriage, wifedom, homemaking, and motherhood are becoming freshly attractive to some number of young women. What’s propelling that resurgence is, in part, the failure of feminism to satisfy many of its adoptees. They’ve reached middle age; they have careers but no kids; they sense that they’ve “missed out” on a critical feature of the female experience. (Some of them don’t have men, either.) That makes the alternative denigrated by militant feminists decades ago loom large in younger women’s thoughts. But what if the young aspirant to “tradwife” status confronted the prospect of remaining unaltered physically by pregnancy and childbirth: i.e., the prospect held out by The Womb?
Just some early-morning thoughts from a novelist trying not to think about his novel.
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