Apocalyptic fiction; Child rearing -- Fiction; Contraception -- Fiction; Science fiction; Sex role -- Fiction; Short stories
Warming a bottle to drinkable temperature took time, at least five
minutes and sometimes ten. Meanwhile, in spite of everything that
anyone could do, the baby was crying. He would not he cajoled, walked,
teased, patted, jollied, scolded, or argued into accepting any
substitute for his formula. With him, it was food or nothing.
For horror, I had a favorite scene: the mother alone, rushing from
baby to bottle, from bottle to baby, one screaming, the other cold,
frantic with the pediatrician's admonitions, and then both too hot....
I would not have had it on my conscience for all the royalties in
America! At least I have saved the world that.
* * * * *
There were more mis-statements, but those were enough. I did what any
man, any scientist, would have done. I gave my findings to the world.
They were published under the title: "What the Baby Books Won't Tell
You." The article stirred up immediate controversy.
It is not enough to uncover a conspiracy; you must find a motive. I had
discovered the motive behind the Great Conspiracy.
Baby books were not written to teach parents how to care for their
children; baby books were written to sell baby books. And magazines
published articles about babies to sell magazines to mothers.
Valid reasons. If they had not existed, there would have been no baby
books, no women's magazines. But this had far-reaching consequences:
the market for baby books and women's magazines was the great,
proliferating population of new parents. If the awful truth about
parenthood were published, if these hardy, ingenuous souls were
discouraged, something quite startling would happen to the market: it
would disappear.
There were attempts at suppression on all levels, but the truth was out
and nothing could stop its spread. Secret printing presses turned out
reprints by the millions; they were passed from hand to hand. Fathers
whispered the word to husbands; husbands passed it on to bachelor
friends.
The word raced around the world.
It would not have been so disastrous if Lindsay McPherson had not
simultaneously perfected his contraceptive pill out of a Southwestern
plant named _Lithospermum ruderale_. For the first time, a
contraceptive was safe, cheap, and convenient--and 100% effective in
reducing _male_ fertility.
Birth control was in the hands of the men.
Billions of the tiny pills were turned out. Enemy nations sowed them
over each other's territory in boxes containing translations of my
article. Men cached them away, carried them in money belts, hollowed
out hiding places in the heels of shoes....
Births dropped suddenly. Almost overnight, the maternity wards were
depopulated. Hospitals went broke, or began advertising for patrons,
sick or well.
The makers of baby foods, baby apparel, and baby accessories went next,
then the women's magazines when they lost their advertising. In a few
years, the condition hit the schools; one by one they closed their
doors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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