the bearers

Sophie and Elias sat across from a man of fifty or so, a severe expression on his face, as he shuffled a stack of papers on the desk in front of him. The name on his plate read Foster Simmons, and his hands were as worn as the wood veneer of his office walls, almost as if he had somehow been alive as long as the building he occupied. But then he mustered a smile and a pleasant disposition, both of which were common among employees at the Bureau of Progenation Control, in an effort to ease their worries, as he gave their application one final review.

“You’re familiar with the process, yes?” he asked.

They nodded their heads. The application, they had known, was arduous and often took years. But Elias’s father knew an upper-level manager at the department who had fast-tracked their application, helping them through the mountains of paperwork and permit approvals. They had now reached the final stages of the process, kicked off by an in-person interview to determine their aptitude for the training program.

Since the invention of the artificial womb and the mass sterilization of women at birth, reproduction had been tightly controlled across the country. Organic births had declined sharply in the last fifty years that nearly 95% of new births were now artificial. And it was nearly the same across the developed world, each country with its own unique set of rules banning the unregulated reproductive rights of its citizens. 

Only those who had been born abroad, mostly in economically impoverished nations, and entered undocumented now gave birth domestically and, it must be said, at a great risk to their personal safety and health. By law the government had the unobstructed right to confiscate any known organic birth and re-house them to suitable guardians. That’s if mothers could even reach full gestation. Oftentimes, mothers were forced to abort pregnancies before term and were always sterilized to prevent any further births. The punitive measures were nearly absolute, and thus the idea of babies being born had become such an antiquated notion. Instead these days, babies were cultivated.

But in the end the new system had far more advantages. All potential progenitors were required to undergo extensive training to establish their aptitude for good parenting. And the statistics were irrefutable. All measures of happiness, intelligence, and standard of living rapidly improved over the decades since the new reproductive laws had gone into effect. Crime rates plummeted. Depression declined. Biological ecosystems thrived. Even species once thought to have gone extinct miraculously returned with the tapering off of declining human births. The culling of the homosapien population was especially a boon to non-human species. The policy had become overwhelmingly popular with voters who continued to reaffirm the philosophy that like most important duties in society, a person should not have been able to enter without sufficient training and accreditation. 

The application process, of course, was only the first of many final steps. Once approved, all hopeful parents were required to enter an accredited program that provided the necessary training to become a successful progenitor. Even if parents met the financial and intelligence requirements, they were still required to receive an average score of 93% across their coursework in order to be considered eligible for progination. Not only that, but their score eventually determined the maximum number of children they would be allowed and the window available for them to pursue parenthood. Usually, it ranged anywhere from two to four children over the course of three to seven years, though exceptions had been made for the most gifted candidates.

Elias and Sophie by all measures were ideal candidates for parenthood. They had been given a proper education, they drank only socially, they never did hard drugs, and they held the kind of optimistic, non-religious value system that had been found most successful in child rearing. If they weren’t granted access to reproductive rights, then who would, they thought.

Mr. Simmons shut the folder and looked across at the couple. “Your application has been approved for the next step. You will be required to attend a two-month intensive training program at the end of which your supervisors will report your performance back to the department. We will then make our final decision. Have you selected an approved training center?”

“Yes,” Elias said. His  father had already secured them a spot at a credentialed program in town, one of the best, in fact, in the country. They had managed to skip the waiting list, despite having yet been approved for training. Still despite Elias and Sophie’s relative advantages, they would enter the program without any edge over the other couples. They would still be required to attend every session, to remain at the residency for the full duration, and to demonstrate an unwavering aptitude for parenting.

“Less than a quarter of the participants pass the program, by design,” Mr. Simmons told them. “It’s important that parenting is offered only to the most high-performing couples.” He escorted them out of his office and handed their folder over to his secretary who made copies for them to keep for their own records. They had been enlisted to start the program in five days and between now and then, they would need to offload responsibilities at work to others on their teams, to find a sitter for their dog Olive, and to secure a trusted friend to house sit for them for the duration of the program.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Sophie asked that night at dinner. Elias nodded. He had always wanted to be a father and if this is what it took, he would perform at his highest capabilities.

The next day, they took a car to the training and assessment center which was located just thirty miles from where they lived. During their stay at the facility, they would not be allowed contact with the outside world in any capacity. No phone. No email. No texts. They would be put through a series of parenting scenarios, educational seminars, and psychological assessments in order to evaluate their aptitude for parenting in an exhaustive way. They would live their whole lives inside the facility, so that the assessors could gain a comprehensive understanding of them from head to toe. Parents, after all, were never given time off, so it was crucial in measuring a couple’s aptitude to observe them all the time, even in their worst moods.

Sophie and Elias also knew that couples were only ever granted one chance at assessment. Once they were deemed unfit to parent, their standing would remain unchanged except in extreme circumstances. And so it was crucial that couples only pursued parenthood when they believed they had the best chance to complete the coursework successfully.

It had often been said by critics that the system of approving couples for reproduction largely favored the wealthy, the connected, and the dominant. But what couldn’t be ignored was the success of the program on societal stability. Family disintegration was virtually extinct. Children were nearly always reared in safe and protective homes by parents who loved, and more importantly, cared for them. Mental health issues had precipitously declined as early childhood trauma fell nearly to zero. Resources expended to rehouse children from unfit parents could now be used for more economically advantageous services.

And most importantly, as nearly all children were raised with what was deemed the right sort of upbringing, they turned into upstanding adult citizens almost without fail. Hence, a new class of citizen had been ushered into existence, one who was free of deep seated hurt, free of anger and resentment, and absent of the burdens so many adults once had. It was well within a government’s rule to limit one freedom in exchange for a disproportionately more important freedom, and while some citizens complained, for the most part, couples who were denied parenting rights were happier themselves, not saddled with the responsibility of children they might later regret having had.

The training facility looked like any other building. Beige stucco exterior walls. Hedges trimmed neatly. Tinted glass windows that moderated the temperature as the sun lowered in the sky. Inside were individual rooms. Couples, when they entered, were immediately shown to opposite ends of the facility where they would reside. While it was important to assess the couple’s overall capabilities, it was also necessary to observe them individually and to maintain that they could handle situations where the other’s presence was unavailable. 

Each room was equipped with a twin bed, a sink, a desk, and dresser. The residents were allowed to bring pre-approved toiletries, life-saving medications, and one photo of their choosing. Many people chose photos of their partners, while others chose natural landscapes or impressive architectural feats or photos of their own parents for inspiration. It was the only connection they would have to the outside world as the duration of their stay would be solely dedicated to their goal of becoming parents.

Sophie and Elias checked in at the front, where they emptied their pockets into a bin, which they would collect at the end of their stay. They were given four changes of identical clothes, a pair of sweatpants and a crewneck sweatshirt. They would live in this uniform for the next two months and so comfort had been of the utmost consideration in their design. They were given a tour of the space which consisted of the men’s and women’s dormitories, a dozen or so meeting rooms, and a large group session room, where the majority of their training would take place. 

They were told that four other couples would be joining them for this period. “Four only?” Elias asked.

“Yes,” the processor said. “We keep our training programs small to give each couple the proper attention they need. It’s why we’re the best in the nation.”

They would attend training sessions each day for six days of the week from six in the morning until six in the evening. They would be provided all their meals and given free activity twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening. All other hours would be spent reading training manuals and sleeping. There were times when Elias and Sophie had entertained whether such comprehensive methods were worth the ability to have offspring. Of course, they never expressed these opinions publicly -- the slightest hint of dispassion might be used against them during the application process -- but they wondered sometimes, quietly, whether they might just as well go on living without the possibility of progeny. But then, the thought of not knowing what it would be like might haunt them. So they decided the work might be justified in the end when they were able to have a child to love.

By the time dinner was served, the other couples had already arrived. Everyone had been assigned their tiny dormitories, and now each trainee was dressed identically in their sweatsuits. Partners were, of course, not denied any contact with each other, though they were carefully monitored. Elias and Sophie sat across from a young couple named Carolyn and Do-Hoon. They had met during their university years, when Carolyn had spent a summer interning at the corporate headquarters of a famous South Korean electronics manufacturer. After graduation, she and Do-Hoon had married and relocated to the States, where he now worked as a medical devices software engineer and she as a corporate finance analyst.

“We’re very lucky,” Carolyn said. “The whole process has only taken us a year and a half so far.”

“In Korea,” Do-Hoon said, “the process can take twice as long. The government decides from time to time to halt all new applications, so you have to wait until they reopen. Sometimes, you just miss your window completely.”

They were young and well-educated and wealthy, Sophie thought. They had pleasant dispositions and good hygiene. If anyone would be granted parenthood, it would be them. Sophie was now almost thirty-seven and Elias was pushing forty, by far the largest red flag the couple had. Once couples matured past forty, prospects of parenthood dropped by half. It was seen as irresponsible to offer parental rights to couples who had sat on their decision to become parents for such a long time. If they had wanted it fully, the government believed, they would have applied as soon as they reached the age of eligibility. And that’s exactly what Carolyn and Do-Hoon had done. So it seemed these two would have all the advantages in the world, especially Carolyn.

Artificial wombs and the strict control of births had had the beneficial side benefit of reducing the gender disparities in the workplaces. New mothers were no longer forced into gestation, and early-childhood responsibilities now fell equally to both parents. Fathers could just as easily feed their infants formula, they could change diapers, they could bathe their children. There were no adverse health concerns for mothers, which were exclusively the result of giving birth naturally. Now, parents could outsource the gestation of their children to machines and scientists who could optimize all variables for a successful cultivation. The artificial womb, in the end, was an invention that had forced the realignment of the genders. No social movement had ever been as effective.

The two couples immediately liked each other. Their personalities were well-suited, and they were glad to have found others on whom they might rely and with whom they could commiserate, though to what extent had yet to be determined. But all the couples had seemed nice and pleasant. Of course, they did. They hadn’t made it this far in the application process without such characteristics. The three other couples were Magnus and Carla, Bruno and Griselda, and Archie and Rajni. They were all in their late twenties or early thirties, all from money, and all well-educated.

After dinner, the couples gathered in the group training room to meet their instructors William and Bernice, who handed them each a set of reading materials for the next day’s sessions. They were sent back to their rooms where they spent the remainder of the night reviewing these pages before going to bed. They would be expected to come prepared each morning so they could fully participate in the exercises of the day. And the syllabus was exhaustive. It covered everything from early childhood development to nutrition to mental health. It was everything a parent needed to know to raise a child correctly. It was the minimum requirement the state now enforced for all new parents. After all, the children were the future and the future could easily be destroyed by bad parenting.

The following days were spent getting used to the routine. They each woke up early, ate a balanced breakfast with their partners, exercised moderately, attended group training sessions and individualized psychological examinations. The day was filled in so-called units, simply fifteen-minute blocks that could be organized in any way the programmers decided each day. They were allocated one-unit breaks between sessions, which each were anywhere from five to nine units. They had three units for lunch. A two-unit afternoon break. Fifteen units for independent study. Four units for couples bonding. Twenty-four units of sleep. 

It was clear that some couples adjusted more naturally to the rhythms of the training center, while others struggled to feel at ease. Sophie and Elias decided that the structure gave them a way to channel their energy into a productive use of the training. And they excelled at the written and oral examinations that they had weekly. Each of the couples had their scores listed publicly for the rest of the group to see. Sophie and Elias ranked second, just below Carolyn and Do-Hoon, who had a collective 99%, a good five points higher than Sophie and Elias.

So it quickly became clear that it would be very difficult to pass the training, that out of five couples, only one or possibly two were likely to be approved for next steps. When in the third week, Magnus and Carla’s score had dropped so low that even future perfect scores would leave them below the required score, they were kindly asked to leave the facility for good. They accepted the decision gracefully, though in truth it had proposed that Magnus had recently reconsidered his will to be a parent and had purposely been tanking many of the exams.

By the end of the first month, the remaining couples had found themselves in a battle for second place. Everyone’s scores hovered somewhere between 85% and 95%, though Carolyn and Do-Hoon still maintained an exceptional rating outside the bounds of normal. It was all but certain that they would be granted access to reproductive rights by the end, so long as they didn’t completely fail any future examination. It became a test to see if more than one couple might make the cut.

The group met in the training room where a group of four visiting instructors, two men and two women, stood at the front. The lead parenting generalist stepped forward beside them. “Though it has not been announced yet, all parents will now be required a live-in caregiver to aid them in the rearing of each child. If you are permitted multiple children, you will be allotted one live-in per child.”

In the past live-ins were granted access to homes which required additional parental guidance or where the parents needed some course correction. However, they were only ever offered on a temporary basis, but now it seemed the government would require full-time access to the home.

“Their jobs are to assist you in co-parenting your child. They will also be responsible for assessing your ongoing suitability as a parent and continued guardianship of your child.” It seemed that by the end of their formal training, they would all enter a kind of ongoing training and assessment throughout the rearing of their child. “You have each been assigned a training live-in and you will run through various hypothetical scenarios now.” The generalist assigned each of the couples a live-in, and the trios were sent away to observation rooms where they would spend the rest of the afternoon being assessed.

Elias and Sophie were assigned a specialist live-in named Mark. Mark had a cold, expressionless face, like the others, which Elias and Sophie understood to be part of his assessment. When they entered the room, they discovered a set of three nearly life-like dolls, one infant, one toddler, and one pre-teen. They began with a simple scenario: a colic baby who has not slept all night.

Elias and Sophie worked to calm the baby for twenty minutes when Mark interrupted: “Have you tried positioning the baby in a modified four stance?” Modified four stance. They looked at each other, racking their brains for the answer. They had seen it diagrammed in some of their textbooks, but among all the other stances, it seemed they couldn’t recall. Mark walked over and demonstrated, holding the baby over one arm, face down, allowing the baby’s arms to dangle. Immediately, the baby stopped crying. They felt foolish, inept even. Of course, they should have remembered it -- they had seen it, been tested on it.

Mark handed the baby to Elias who continued the position while marking a note on his clipboard. They ran through various scenarios with the infant, then moved to the toddler, who had several tantrums. “Bribery is a form of coercion and the department does not permit coercion,” Mark stated after Sophi attempted to bargain additional playtime for some cooperation. Mark jotted additional notes on his clipboard.

Finally, they moved onto the pre-teen, who was all but lethargic. They had been provided a medical examination, which they were meant to look over and spot any insufficient diagnoses. “There is no one in this world who will care more for your child than you. Their doctor may have missed something. It is your job to spot those mistakes. What is wrong with your child?”

They didn’t know. It seemed impossible to tell. They didn’t know this child, not like they would know the child they had reared for a decade. “A good parent,” Mark said, “will know instinctively what is wrong with their child.” They felt defeated once again. Mark continued jotting notes down on his clipboard. “Your child is suffering from depression and a mild iron deficiency. You should increase his intake of nutritional supplements and give him more access to direct sunlight.”

They all seemed to be sweeping generalizations that would in reality be quite ineffective. Of course, Sophie or Elias could not express these concerns, otherwise appear disobedient themselves.

The group gathered back in the meeting room at the end of the session, all withdrawn and defeated. It had not gone well, it appeared. They were dismissed to have dinner, but no one seemed to have an appetite. After clearing their plates, the group reconvened to see their new scores displayed on the board in the hallway. Everyone had fallen by at least four points, even Carolyn and Do-Hoon, who had taken the largest hit, seven points. Maybe no one would pass the training. Maybe no one would be granted progeny.

The next month was even harder. They were given double the coursework. The examinations were ruthless, catching them on the slightest errors. Two more couples were eventually dismissed with ratings so low they could never recover, and in the final week, it was only Sophie and Elias and Carolyn and Do-Hoon. Both couples were on the verge of failing themselves. The last two days would consist of a set of rigorous final examinations where the couples, both together and as individuals, would be brought through a series of oral and written questions, guided scenarios, and a psychological examination that would either certify or fail them as potential parents.

Each exam would last six units, with one unit breaks in between and two units for meals. To add to the difficulty, they would only be allowed to sleep in increments of two units, both the night preceding and in between, being woken regularly by a crying child. To say the examinations did not go well was an understatement. Elias and Sophie had hardly been able to focus due to the lack of sleep. They had been irritable and prone to mistakes. 

The instructor addressed the two couples prior to their second day of exams, saying, “You must understand that parenting can be unpleasant and demoralizing at times. And yet you must still persist and excel during the worst of it.” It was the truth. But still parents should have been allowed moments of small failures. They should have been extended some amount of grace in a job that took so much of their time and energy. Wasn’t that right? Or was that the line of thinking that eventually led down the path of excessively negligent parenting, one thing leading to the next, exacerbating the previous peccadillo?

Perhaps in the end, they weren’t cut out to be parents. Perhaps, they didn’t even want it anymore. They couldn’t even think straight anymore. They hardly knew.

Sophie walked into the hallway after a particular difficult exam, finding Carolyn alone, crying behind the vending machine. Sophie approached her, reaching her hand to comfort.

“I’ve never felt like such a failure in my life,” Carolyn said through tears. “I’ve always been able to keep up. But this is so different. Maybe I’m just not meant to be a mother.”

But of course someone like Carolyn would be an ideal mother. She was caring, she was compassionate, she was smart and resilient. And yet this had broken even her. Sophie could see something in Carolyn’s eyes dull in that moment, and it felt like a loss not just for her, but for the world too. If every mother and every father were deemed insufficient, then who could be expected to take on the task of rearing children? If mistakes were not allowed, then how could any new humans come into existence anymore?

The couples were dismissed and led into the room for one final dinner. They would be allowed to leave the facility that night, but their scores would not be posted publicly, instead sent to the Department for review. The two couples sat across from each other, providing whatever comforting words they could, though none seemed to ease the pain of such a failure.

Still, they had to trust that the system worked. It was the government’s job to protect the lives of its citizens, especially the young, innocent and unborn. If they were simply to give children to anyone, what kind of lives could they expect them to have? Unhappy, unfulfilled, depressed. This was not the way life was meant to be lived. And the government had a duty to ensure the happiness of each and every child in this country. They might have to take the rights of the parents in order to ensure the rights of the children, even hypothetical children. Otherwise who else would protect them?

The two couples gathered their things from the attendants at the front desk and exited the building. They would return to their lives as normal, driving to and from work, cooking meals, visiting friends and relatives. And in two weeks’ time, they would be given the results of their examinations. They would wait with hope that they might be allowed this one small request, something that seemed so fundamental to each of them. And if they were deemed competent, sufficient enough to parent, they would believe that they too were good. They would believe that they had all the attributes that were necessary to raise the young, to impart knowledge and morals and happiness and all the things that made life good. Because somehow, something deep inside them told them that if they could not provide this for a child, then their lives might have been futile.

And so in spite of everything, they still hoped for a child. They still kept their dream of having a family alive. After all, what was a child if not the hopes and dreams of its parents? And what would happen to a child if its creation and rearing were not carefully regulated by the government?