Here’s an old post I thought was relevant in light of the recent response to Harrison Butker’s commencement address.
Spoiler Alert: The following post contains major spoilers for Kazuo Ishiguro's novel “Never Let Me Go”. If you haven't read it, you should. It's great.
The contemporary theology of modern civilization holds each individual is the architect of his own fate. Whether it be career, gender, appearance, health, happiness, virtue, success, it is a choice. Separate from politics, it is a narrative of self-determination, a laudable one in many ways, yet a false one in many others.
Perhaps most glaringly is the story told to young girls and women that says they can and should pursue careers in the same way men do, and to the same ends. Beginning in high school, perhaps even earlier, teenagers of both sexes are encouraged to start planning college and employment goals. What's your five-year plan? Ten-year plan? What do you want to achieve professionally by the time you are 30? How much money do you want to make? Where do you want to live?
Children? Family? Oh, don't worry. That will come. Focus on your job. Travel. Spend time with your friends. Amass experiences and adventures. Anyone can have kids. You can think about that later, or not at all.
Then reality hits, and a 35-year-old woman starts to panic. She has her degrees, a six-figure income, owns her own home, and has been to Bali. But the kids and family did not just magically materialize, and now it's getting late. Maybe too late.
Sure, there's IVF and sperm donors. Perhaps she can find some beta to sign on. But why didn't they tell her twenty years ago when they were supposed to be helping her map out her perfect future? Why didn't they tell her all roads don't lead to Rome, nor home? That you actually have to go out and find it. And that the day would invariably come for her, and most like her, when that was all she would want to find. Why was she lied to?
“Never Let Me Go” is a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro set in a mostly recognizable world with a science fiction twist. Technology has been developed whereby humans can be perfectly cloned. The new advancement is then used in the service of manufacturing replica humans with no other purpose than to one day serve as organ donors, ultimately leading to their accelerated death. All are bred and reared to this single end.
Yet in the interest of humanity and healthy living, a group of them are raised in an experimental school which shields them from this stark fate. While not explicitly deceived, they are taught by a team of educators in the same manner as normal children would be. Their interests and personalities are cultivated, and they are taught about love and ambition, even though they will never have the opportunity for either.
The climax of the book arrives when two of the main characters, Kathy and Tommy, follow a false lead that donors can avoid “service” if they are in love. In pursuit of this exemption, they arrive at the home of their former school's headmistress, where they are told the truth and much more about their childhoods. There is no deferment. Tommy asks, “Why train us, encourage us, make us produce all of that? If we're just going to give donations anyway, then die, why all those lessons?” The response is both patronizing and brutally honest. “You've had good lives, you're educated and cultured....Very well, sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you...You built your lives on what we gave you. You wouldn't be who you are today if we'd not protected you.”
It's a devastating answer. Yes, childhood should be protected, but not at the expense of preparing for adulthood. At what point are individuals deserving of the truth about their destiny, especially an easily foreseeable one? Surely the answer cannot be never. Yet that is the determination of the donors' school and the school of modern feminism. Only the latter is not out of altruism. It is born of cynicism and misdirection.
Back to reality. Becoming a living organ dispenser and becoming a mother are obviously vastly different fates. One is a death sentence, the other a privilege and a joy. Yet, parallels exist in the predictability of the outcome. For all the narrative and messaging, most women will intrinsically feel the need to hold a baby at a certain age. They will ache to love their own children and build their life around them in a way most men will not. True happiness for women will most likely come from family and domestic fulfillment, not a salary. This is not a Taliban endorsement to lock women in the house with no rights or options. It is an acknowledgment of the most basic biology that underpins all of life.
Yet the facts notwithstanding, so much of this cannot be said out loud. At least not when it matters and not to whom it matters. Instead, young women are sent off into the world with a coded map tracking a trail to false treasure. Why not give them the chance to plan their personal ambitions in the same way they would plan their careers?
A path to college and work is constantly taught and reinforced, but no such path to family. Why is it impolitic to teach women that spending the entire decade of their twenties hooking up and moving around is not a logical precursor to establishing stability and security in their thirties? It actually makes it less attainable. Having the foresight to develop a meaningful relationship early on and pursuing young marriage is the best bet for successful couples. It would be to most women's great benefit to know this as teens and plan their futures around it. It would also be better for men if more women demanded this of them.
It is true we lie to children to protect them. About Santa. About war. About where babies come from. But when those in power keep telling those lies long after they have become useful, they begin to believe the lies, even to ennoble them. There is no honor in willful deceit. The protection you seek transforms into real harm. Girls deserve to know who they will become, and what will make them whole. Let us not send them into the world blind, especially not under the guise of doing it for their own good. The end point is motherhood, not a corner office. Tell them the truth.