I recently read a Greg Egan short story from 1995 called Eugene. In it, two parents win the lottery and consider using most of their money to genetically engineer the smartest, most perfect baby possible. The goal for this baby is to solve all of humanity’s problems.
Two things stood out to me about this story:
(1) The ‘designer baby’ discourse has legs! This was written in 1995! People were talking about designer babies a while ago and continue now (as they become increasingly accessible).
(2) In thinking about this baby’s future success, not once does anyone in the story consider a factor which would probably have a huge impact on the outcome: the parents themselves.
Which got me thinking about a somewhat ridiculous proposal to consider: designer parents.
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Go outside. Look around. Or stay inside reading this and think of all of the people you know: friends, relatives, acquaintances, coworkers. How many of those people would you want to be your parents? Can you think of any people (besides your real parents) you would choose?
I can’t. I bet most people can’t. Perhaps it is impossible to be a perfect parent, but it’s also true that many humans are quite bad at parenting. ‘Bad’ meaning there is much room for improvement; ‘bad’ meaning we can identify specific ways they could parent better based on desired outcomes for the children.
So here’s the scenario: someone creates a designer parents agency. It works a little bit like Rental Family except the rental is more serious and more permanent. Basically, you pay professional parents to parent your child for you (or at least for some big chunk of the time that you would ordinarily be parenting). And those people raise the child to specific standards more effectively than you could have.
Want your kid anxious but not too anxious? We’ve got a solution for that. Perfectly secure and confident? We’ve got a solution for that? Insecure and hustler-y? We can do that, too. There’s no college for parenting, or science you follow, to achieve your parenting goals; we are a better answer.
I’m not talking about a nanny. Or a tutor. Yes, I know those exist. I am talking about parents. A designer parenting agency where the biological parents choose the traits (perhaps based on child outcomes?) they would like the designer parents to have. The agency selects the parents which most closely fit the criteria and the designer parents then take over parenting duties for some chunk of the child’s life; many years, at least. Maybe you could choose full-time or part-time. Or some kind of custom setup.
One day, a designer parent could even be a coveted job. Well-paid. Difficult. There might be a special, low-acceptance-rate school for learning how to be a designer parent. Perhaps it would even get added to the list of ‘careers parents want you to have’ right alongside doctor and engineer.
Nature is important. But surely, nurture matters too? Surely this would have an impact?
It could get even crazier. Maybe it would turn out that the best way to parent is to have kids in larger groups. Or to have more than two parents. Or something else. Who knows? We haven’t really tried it, at least not with the specific method, intentions, and scale I am describing.
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This probably sounds gross and unappealing to you. I imagine it does to most people. But I also think it’s interesting. I think it’s interesting people don’t really seem to have considered it; the closest you can get, perhaps, are wealthy families hiring expensive nannies and tutors and sending their children to the best schools. But that’s still not exactly what I am describing.
Would this be extremely unethical? Maybe. I don’t know. But would there be more ethical problems with designer parents than designer babies? I’m actually not sure. It seems unlikely. The designer parents idea is certainly less eugenics-coded; it is, in some sense, just one step further beyond hiring a full-time nanny.
Greg Egan, can you write another short story please?
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