The Gift
I have been writing micro-stories and then trying to flesh them out (or not) into longer tales. This is one such story.
Nadine had been enrolled in the program shortly after her 15th birthday (like most girls in her neighborhood) and so she lived safe in the knowledge that she would never raise her own child.
In 2031 the plummeting birth rate of the wealthy intersected with the growing poverty and disorganization of the poor with the inception of the federal child fund: any girl could opt in to have any children she gave birth to immediately taken and (after being screened for genetic or chronic, incurable ailments) donated to one of the many wealthy women who badly wanted children (or, much more commonly, a child). The rich didn’t want the labor and physical cost and career interruption of a full pregnancy… but they still mostly wanted the experience of motherhood. Of course the Christians (the less fashionable ones) and the Muslims and the reactionary traditionalists opposed this proposal, labeling it ‘unnatural’ but they were mostly dismissed as misogynists and maintainers of patriarchy (which, even now that 65% of professional roles belonged to women, was still very much alive and well).
Nadine had been raised by her mother and brought up round exuberant ideas of license and promise: a girl could literally do anything and any hint of onerous responsibility or limitations was very much frowned up. Such implications were simply unseemly and her teachers (who were all themselves unmarried women) strongly discouraged it. In fact, the only people who seemed to get married these days were the wealthy… but this was rarely observed or analyzed. The music influencers and tube actresses which girls loved (and the sullen and slender and laconic boy stars they fantasized about) interspersed the messages they broadcast: sex and fun one day, love and destiny the next. It was almost as if it was programmed. The boys in the neighborhood generally imbibed much different messages: leering and sexual promise from beautiful and curvaceous women on the tube one day, and joking and pranks and laziness from hilarious and irreverent men-children the next. Most kids formatted their dreams according to these skits: desirability and lifetime romance for the girls and a galaxy of lush sex and an easy life of jokes and sports cars for the boys.
Marriage was still a dream of many working-class girls and it was one they played in their imaginations and in their girly ‘Zoom parties’ with each other, forcing each new indolent boy met on a dating app (juvenile-only apps of course-these were teenagers after all) or in the hook-up fitness centers into their psychic narrative. As the years went on and the situationships never seemed to progress beyond shallow physical connections and mutual deceit the dream of marriage generally faded. By age 20 most women regarded their childhood notions of monogamy to be quaint and ridiculous. Sometimes they wondered where they had come from!
Nadine had been especially sexually active in the months before her pregnancy was confirmed and so there was no way to determine who the ‘father’ was-nor any impetus to do so. Once the government assumed ‘carer’ responsibilities for all children of non-married women the old regime of judicial ‘child support’ disappeared almost entirely (to the relief of millions of young men). She had been diagnosed with ADHD and mild ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and depression the year before and so no schoolwork could be assigned to her. She experienced the brief bump in social status (among her girl and trans friends-boys didn’t much care about the clinical labels) once she’d had her diagnoses issued and printed in on her digital identity (the first two conditions were lifetime, depression had to updated annually) but that had mostly faded by the time she started hooking up. Sometimes she would feel awkward around people and, with a reassuring rush of realization, think, “oh-that’s my ASD.” Sometimes she would want to lie around in bed upon waking and know that that was her depression. Such labels were beyond doubt, and the associated allowances beyond question.
Nevertheless, the therapy and the drugs she’d been assigned never made her feel happy, exactly, and sometimes she even missed doing homework! She would never share such a crazy notion with her friend group of course. She lacked the vocabulary to even explore it. She had started snacking more… and then purging, an activity constantly warned against by teachers and therapists but one which was nearly universal among young women. There was a huge and underground constellation of tube stars and who openly bragged about this ‘lifestyle choice’ and who daily recorded their tragically light meals and extended exercise routines (plus their fashion choices and dates and the rest-the regular influencer menu). Her weight had begun to fluctuate and so she had sought distraction and validation in the attention of men (or, more precisely, boys aged 17-25). No matter how many lessons they received about personal fulfillment or power most girls never seemed to lose the need for male romantic approval… at least until their late 20’s when they’d usually had their tubes tied and abandoned the idea of committed romance altogether…