Who's Nuclear?

We read an article in my feminist and queer theory class that used the phrase “designer baby” and I imagined a white butter whip of a baby with a D&G medallion hanging from his creamy neck. And sunglasses, ones that would shade his entire face.

This is not what the author meant.

The author meant babies with good and then better and then best genes. Rich people now can shop for good sperm and good eggs. It’s kind of like the film Gattaca, except it’s very real for those with money. You can poke around online and look at your donor’s profiles. Take Ryan: a blonde, well-built, handsome, Ivy League graduate, with no history of genetic disease and strong cheekbones. Now pair his sperm with the egg of a young brunette woman just out of college—Rachel, let’s say—and Rachel is an up-and-coming artist who needed the $20,000 for studio space and art time, who is quirky and has a hawk’s eyesight, who is dextrous and can play Chopin, and who comes from good, Polish stock. Now take that egg and that sperm and put it in the womb of a woman we’ll call Lucille, who lives on the East side of I-35 and takes the bus to her job at the Vick’s Vapor Rub canning plant. Her perfume can never quite cover the menthol that wraps her skin.

Nine months later Lucille gives birth to a baby boy at Seton medical center and Lucille never sees the kid, just goes back to her job canning Vick’s, and a family is made happy. Did I mention the parents? Barbara, early forties, lawyer, with a big mouth and small teeth and sterile since forever. Then Bob, with nervous fingers and a job writing scripts for iPhone games about high school drama.

The kid they name Rigel, God knows why. It’s the name of a star and it’s kind of like Rachel and kind of like Ryan but not too like them, because Rigel’s their own, of course. And Rigel has five parents. And Rigel is a designer baby.

So that’s the question—who are Rigel’s parents? Certainly his biological parents are Rachel and Ryan, though maybe we should add Lucille to the mix because she did give birth, after all. Or was she just a glorified test tube? Just a warm womb with blood and nourishment. A pre-babysitter? Well, 2 1/2 parents let’s say.

Then Barbara and Bob are Rigel’s adopted parents, of course. But are they really? They’ve known about Rigel before Rachel and Ryan ever did. And maybe, probably, Rachel and Ryan never knew about Rigel.

So who the hell are this kid’s parents? If this class has taught me anything it’s that—it’s complicated. I have this image in my head of a silhouette dad and a silhouette mom and a silhouette kid with a baseball cap and they are called the Nuclear Family. Father, Mother, child—that’s close, that’s nuclear. Like a nucleus. Tight, compact, made of just a few discernible parts. But who’s family is like that anymore?

My mom died when I was 12, and my dad partnered with another woman when I was 14. Now, 22, I’ve almost spent half my life with this new woman with whom I am very close, and whom I would even call a second mother. So who’s my mother? What happens when I turn 25, and I’ve spent more time being raised by my stepmom than my real, biological mom? Is she my mom? What about when I’m 40, when my biological mom is nothing but a long faded memory—when she’s from a different life altogether?

The point is—nuclear families are rare these days. Divorced parents, adopted parents, two fathers, two mothers, designer babies, international adoption (paging Angelina and Brad)—who’s nuclear? And does my image of the silhouette family even make sense anymore? I have three parents, some have four, some have more than that.

And wouldn’t it be weird if a guy’s sperm ever became a commodity? Take our buddy Brad Pitt—everyone wants to have Brad’s baby. I know this because I have heard many women say, “I want to have his baby.” What if his sperm was available for purchase? There would be a lot of Brad babies, and there would be half-siblings spread throughout the globe—and then who’s family?

And then who’s nuclear?