“Okay,” Izzy said, hearing nothing that was out of the ordinary, waiting for the bizarre to arrive, knowing it was coming or else Dr. Grind wouldn’t be sitting beside her, offering her this opportunity.
“So often, parents are left to fend for themselves, to figure out how to raise their children, and I think, and my work has reflected this, that there needs to be a level of investment in each child’s life, a community-wide interest in the fate of every child who is born into this world. If two parents is the traditional ideal, then why not four parents? What could you gain if there were now four people heavily invested in that child’s future? Why not six? Why not a situation where every child feels an attachment to all the adults in their lives? My work, for the past ten years, has focused on helping parents and their children in neighborhoods and communities receive support from their fellow man, a village of sorts, created to help raise each child so they feel loved and respected and have opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise. Now, The Infinite Family Project is different. What we’re trying to do in this case is to build a communal setting where a group of parents and their children have access to every possible advantage, to group families right at birth to see if we can improve the way in which we raise children. If my previous work sought to encourage all adults to feel connected to the children around them, then this project seeks to turn every possible adult into an actual parent. We want to create a scenario where every child feels that every adult is, in essence, one of their parents and cares about them without hesitation or reservation. Does this make sense, Izzy?”
“Not entirely, if I’m being honest, Dr. Grind,” she replied. “It sounds like some kind of commune.”
“Well, not exactly,” Dr. Grind replied. “It’s not exactly a commune, it’s a scientific family.”
“That sounds like a cult, no offense,” Izzy said.
Dr. Grind smiled. “That’s very perceptive,” he said. “That’s good.” He took a sip of his tea, winced at the sweetness of it, and then stared at his hands for a good five seconds. It seemed like Izzy had inadvertently created a riddle that Dr. Grind was now trying to solve.
“How about this, then,” he continued. “I am in the process of finding ten families for a ten-year study. Those ten families will live together in the complex and have access to the very best in child care, child development, and child education. These children, instead of being only children within their traditional families, will now have nine brothers and sisters and they will live together in the complex and spend their early childhood feeling that companionship. And the parents of these children, in exchange for their time and their hard work, will have access to their own opportunities for education, job training, and parental support, things that they would have struggled to obtain on their own, weighed down by the responsibilities of parenthood. Beyond the actual families, we will have trained specialists in every available field ready to help meet the challenges of raising a child. Our hope is that, by the time the project has come to an end, the children will have received a level of care unlike anything they would have received otherwise, and the parents will be better prepared and more stable for the future. All that I’m asking in return is for you to open up your belief system to include a more communal style of parenting, to make room in your heart and mind for not just one child, but many children. The hardest part of this entire project, for the parent at least, is that you will not be defined as the child’s primary parent for a portion of the project’s duration. You will always see your child and interact with them on a daily basis, but they will only think of you as one of their many parents. It’s a necessary component for the early years of the child’s development, until they are ready to accept the fact of their biological link.”