As we argue about cultural changes to the family, we tend to overlook the elephant in the room. That is, given potential breakthroughs in reproductive technology, will women in advanced countries still be giving natural childbirth 100 years from now? With exceptions, there’s a good chance the answer in one form or another is “No.”
This doesn’t mean in the future you may be able to enjoy an airplane flight without a child in the row behind you kicking your seat. It means the mechanism to create and raise the next generation of seat kickers might be radically different than today.
It could be an artificial uterus holding a baby that might share genes with known parents. The worse nightmare is the genetically-engineered test tube babies of Aldous Huxley’s socialized “Brave New World.” Before you scoff at these future visions, keep in mind although the real world may never match our imaginations or fears, it often gets close enough for all practical purposes.
Today, it’s not unusual to come across young men and women joyously proclaiming they have no intentions of having children. This sentiment may be dismissed as antidotal except many industrial nations are experiencing negative growth due to drops in birth rates. In the United States, adult diaper sales are becoming an increasing share of the market.
I’m not saying every person can or should be a parent, but societies can’t exist when adult diapers outsell baby diapers. Therefore, as a growing number of people unfairly shift parenting to an ever smaller number of altruistic others, something has to give.
As technology comes to the rescue, motherhood as we know it, like fatherhood which vanished many years earlier, will cease to exist. There are many who would consider this a good thing. But nature always balances the books, and “good things” tend to come with great costs.
A few years ago, a British survey found that “mother” was considered the most beautiful word in the English language. But in any language, the word used for “mother” would elicit the same emotional response, because childbirth is one of life’s great noble acts. Thus, no other word in human experience represents such strong instinctive images of security, comfort and unselfish love. In its many colloquial forms, it is often the first word we say, and for some, the last.
Technology can be a wonderful thing, but what social tsunami will we create when “mother” becomes an anachronism? In the devotional Italian song “Mamma,” there is a line that roughly translates to, “You are the most beautiful song.” Technology may give us electronic gadgets to enjoy our music, but no amount of technology can improve or replace the most beautiful song there is.
So while I still can, I would like to wish all mothers a Happy Mother’s Day. And to my mamma, who is struggling in the late years of her life, “Ma la canzone mia piu bella sei tu.”
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