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.Penetrating deep into our private lives, itwill place absolutely unprecedented strains on the family itself.The family has been called the "giant shock absorber" of society the place to whichthe bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the world, the one stablepoint in an increasingly flux-filled environment.As the super-industrial revolution unfolds,this "shock absorber" will come in for some shocks of its own.Social critics have a field day speculating about the family.The family is "near thepoint of complete extinction," says Ferdinand Lundberg, author of The Coming WorldTransformation."The family is dead except for the first year or two of child raising,"according to psychoanalyst William Wolf."This will be its only function." Pessimists tell usthe family is racing toward oblivion but seldom tell us what will take its place.Family optimists, in contrast, contend that the family, having existed all this time, willcontinue to exist.Some go so far as to argue that the family is in for a Golden Age.As leisurespreads, they theorize, families will spend more time together and will derive greatsatisfaction from joint activity."The family that plays together, stays together," etc.A more sophisticated view holds that the very turbulence of tomorrow will drive peopledeeper into their families."People will marry for stable structure," says Dr.Irwin M.Greenberg, Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.According tothis view, the family serves as one's "portable roots," anchoring one against the storm ofchange.In short, the more transient and novel the environment, the more important the familywill become.It may be that both sides in this debate are wrong.For the future is more open than itmight appear.The family may neither vanish nor enter upon a new Golden Age.It may andthis is far more likely break up, shatter, only to come together again in weird and novelways.THE MYSTIQUE OF MOTHERHOODThe most obviously upsetting force likely to strike the family in the decades immediatelyahead will be the impact of the new birth technology.The ability to pre-set the sex of one'sbaby, or even to "program" its IQ, looks and personality traits, must now be regarded as a realpossibility.Embryo implants, babies grown in vitro, the ability to swallow a pill andguarantee oneself twins or triplets or, even more, the ability to walk into a "babytorium" andactually purchase embryos all this reaches so far beyond any previous human experiencethat one needs to look at the future through the eyes of the poet or painter, rather than those ofthe sociologist or conventional philosopher.It is regarded as somehow unscholarly, even frivolous, to discuss these matters.Yetadvances in science and technology, or in reproductive biology alone, could, within a shorttime, smash all orthodox ideas about the family and its responsibilities.When babies can begrown in a laboratory jar what happens to the very notion of maternity? And what happens to the self-image of the female in societies which, since the very beginnings of man, have taughther that her primary mission is the propagation of and nurture of the race?Few social scientists have begun as yet to concern themselves with such questions.Onewho has is psychiatrist Hyman G.Weitzen, director of Neuropsychiatric Service at PolyclinicHospital in New York.The cycle of birth, Dr.Weitzen suggests, "fulfills for most women amajor creative need.Most women are proud of their ability to bear children.The specialaura that glorifies the pregnant woman has figured largely in the art and literature of bothEast and West."What happens to the cult of motherhood, Weitzen asks, if "her offspring might literallynot be hers, but that of a genetically 'superior' ovum, implanted in her womb from anotherwoman, or even grown in a Petri dish?" If women are to be important at all, he suggests, itwill no longer be because they alone can bear children.If nothing else, we are about to killoff the mystique of motherhood.Not merely motherhood, but the concept of parenthood itself may be in for radicalrevision.Indeed, the day may soon dawn when it is possible for a child to have more thantwo biological parents.Dr.Beatrice Mintz, a developmental biologist at the Institute forCancer Research in Philadelphia, has grown what are coming to be known as "multi-mice"baby mice each of which has more than the usual number of parents.Embryos are taken fromeach of two pregnant mice.These embryos are placed in a laboratory dish and nurtured untilthey form a single growing mass.This is then implanted in the womb of a third femalemouse.A baby is born that clearly shares the genetic characteristics of both sets of donors.Thus a typical multi-mouse, born of two pairs of parents, has white fur and whiskers on oneside of its face, dark fur and whiskers on the other, with alternating bands of white and darkhair covering the rest of the body.Some 700 multi-mice bred in this fashion have alreadyproduced more than 35,000 offspring themselves.If multi-mouse is here, can "multi-man" befar behind?Under such circumstances, what or who is a parent? When a woman bears in her uterusan embryo conceived in another woman's womb, who is the mother? And just exactly who isthe father?If a couple can actually purchase an embryo, then parenthood becomes a legal, not abiological matter.Unless such transactions are tightly controlled, one can imagine suchgrotesqueries as a couple buying an embryo, raising it in vitro, then buying another in thename of the first, as though for a trust fund.In that case, they might be regarded as legal"grandparents" before their first child is out of its infancy.We shall need a whole newvocabulary to describe kinship ties.Furthermore, if embryos are for sale, can a corporation buy one? Can it buy tenthousand? Can it resell them? And if not a corporation, how about a noncommercial researchlaboratory? If we buy and sell living embryos, are we back to a new form of slavery? Suchare the nightmarish questions soon to be debated by us.To continue to think of the family,therefore, in purely conventional terms is to defy all reason.Faced by rapid social change and the staggering implications of the scientificrevolution, super-industrial man may be forced to experiment with novel family forms.Innovative minorities can be expected to try out a colorful variety of family arrangements.They will begin by tinkering with existing forms.THE STREAMLINED FAMILYOne simple thing they will do is streamline the family.The typical pre-industrial family notonly had a good many children, but numerous other dependents as well grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.Such "extended" families were well suited for survival in slow-paced agricultural societies.But such families are hard to transport or transplant.They areimmobile.Industrialism demanded masses of workers ready and able to move off the land inpursuit of jobs, and to move again whenever necessary.Thus the extended family graduallyshed its excess weight and the so-called "nuclear" family emerged a stripped-down,portable family unit consisting only of parents and a small set of children [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Penetrating deep into our private lives, itwill place absolutely unprecedented strains on the family itself.The family has been called the "giant shock absorber" of society the place to whichthe bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the world, the one stablepoint in an increasingly flux-filled environment.As the super-industrial revolution unfolds,this "shock absorber" will come in for some shocks of its own.Social critics have a field day speculating about the family.The family is "near thepoint of complete extinction," says Ferdinand Lundberg, author of The Coming WorldTransformation."The family is dead except for the first year or two of child raising,"according to psychoanalyst William Wolf."This will be its only function." Pessimists tell usthe family is racing toward oblivion but seldom tell us what will take its place.Family optimists, in contrast, contend that the family, having existed all this time, willcontinue to exist.Some go so far as to argue that the family is in for a Golden Age.As leisurespreads, they theorize, families will spend more time together and will derive greatsatisfaction from joint activity."The family that plays together, stays together," etc.A more sophisticated view holds that the very turbulence of tomorrow will drive peopledeeper into their families."People will marry for stable structure," says Dr.Irwin M.Greenberg, Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.According tothis view, the family serves as one's "portable roots," anchoring one against the storm ofchange.In short, the more transient and novel the environment, the more important the familywill become.It may be that both sides in this debate are wrong.For the future is more open than itmight appear.The family may neither vanish nor enter upon a new Golden Age.It may andthis is far more likely break up, shatter, only to come together again in weird and novelways.THE MYSTIQUE OF MOTHERHOODThe most obviously upsetting force likely to strike the family in the decades immediatelyahead will be the impact of the new birth technology.The ability to pre-set the sex of one'sbaby, or even to "program" its IQ, looks and personality traits, must now be regarded as a realpossibility.Embryo implants, babies grown in vitro, the ability to swallow a pill andguarantee oneself twins or triplets or, even more, the ability to walk into a "babytorium" andactually purchase embryos all this reaches so far beyond any previous human experiencethat one needs to look at the future through the eyes of the poet or painter, rather than those ofthe sociologist or conventional philosopher.It is regarded as somehow unscholarly, even frivolous, to discuss these matters.Yetadvances in science and technology, or in reproductive biology alone, could, within a shorttime, smash all orthodox ideas about the family and its responsibilities.When babies can begrown in a laboratory jar what happens to the very notion of maternity? And what happens to the self-image of the female in societies which, since the very beginnings of man, have taughther that her primary mission is the propagation of and nurture of the race?Few social scientists have begun as yet to concern themselves with such questions.Onewho has is psychiatrist Hyman G.Weitzen, director of Neuropsychiatric Service at PolyclinicHospital in New York.The cycle of birth, Dr.Weitzen suggests, "fulfills for most women amajor creative need.Most women are proud of their ability to bear children.The specialaura that glorifies the pregnant woman has figured largely in the art and literature of bothEast and West."What happens to the cult of motherhood, Weitzen asks, if "her offspring might literallynot be hers, but that of a genetically 'superior' ovum, implanted in her womb from anotherwoman, or even grown in a Petri dish?" If women are to be important at all, he suggests, itwill no longer be because they alone can bear children.If nothing else, we are about to killoff the mystique of motherhood.Not merely motherhood, but the concept of parenthood itself may be in for radicalrevision.Indeed, the day may soon dawn when it is possible for a child to have more thantwo biological parents.Dr.Beatrice Mintz, a developmental biologist at the Institute forCancer Research in Philadelphia, has grown what are coming to be known as "multi-mice"baby mice each of which has more than the usual number of parents.Embryos are taken fromeach of two pregnant mice.These embryos are placed in a laboratory dish and nurtured untilthey form a single growing mass.This is then implanted in the womb of a third femalemouse.A baby is born that clearly shares the genetic characteristics of both sets of donors.Thus a typical multi-mouse, born of two pairs of parents, has white fur and whiskers on oneside of its face, dark fur and whiskers on the other, with alternating bands of white and darkhair covering the rest of the body.Some 700 multi-mice bred in this fashion have alreadyproduced more than 35,000 offspring themselves.If multi-mouse is here, can "multi-man" befar behind?Under such circumstances, what or who is a parent? When a woman bears in her uterusan embryo conceived in another woman's womb, who is the mother? And just exactly who isthe father?If a couple can actually purchase an embryo, then parenthood becomes a legal, not abiological matter.Unless such transactions are tightly controlled, one can imagine suchgrotesqueries as a couple buying an embryo, raising it in vitro, then buying another in thename of the first, as though for a trust fund.In that case, they might be regarded as legal"grandparents" before their first child is out of its infancy.We shall need a whole newvocabulary to describe kinship ties.Furthermore, if embryos are for sale, can a corporation buy one? Can it buy tenthousand? Can it resell them? And if not a corporation, how about a noncommercial researchlaboratory? If we buy and sell living embryos, are we back to a new form of slavery? Suchare the nightmarish questions soon to be debated by us.To continue to think of the family,therefore, in purely conventional terms is to defy all reason.Faced by rapid social change and the staggering implications of the scientificrevolution, super-industrial man may be forced to experiment with novel family forms.Innovative minorities can be expected to try out a colorful variety of family arrangements.They will begin by tinkering with existing forms.THE STREAMLINED FAMILYOne simple thing they will do is streamline the family.The typical pre-industrial family notonly had a good many children, but numerous other dependents as well grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.Such "extended" families were well suited for survival in slow-paced agricultural societies.But such families are hard to transport or transplant.They areimmobile.Industrialism demanded masses of workers ready and able to move off the land inpursuit of jobs, and to move again whenever necessary.Thus the extended family graduallyshed its excess weight and the so-called "nuclear" family emerged a stripped-down,portable family unit consisting only of parents and a small set of children [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]