64
TALES FROMTHE FUTURE
At the end of the workday, Victor called Valentina Petrovna into his office.
She was the firm’s lawyer and a woman with a wisdom born of rich life ex-
perience.
He asked her to take a seat and began in a roundabout way.
“I have a somewhat unusual question for you, Valentina Petrovna. It’s,
well, a personal question, but it’s of the utmost importance to me. A certain
relative of mind asked me to find out… Well, you see, she’s planning to get
married and wants to have a child. She asked me to find out where in our
country there’s a good school where she could learn the best way to carry a
child during pregnancy, about childbirth, and about raising him once he’s
born. And what does the father need to do?”
Valentina Petrovna heard him out attentively, and after a short silence,
said:
“As you know, Victor Nikolaevich, I have two children, and I’ve always
been interested in the literature about childbirth and raising children, but
I’ve never even heard of there being any such school, whether here in our
country or abroad.”
“That’s strange. They teach people everything, but no one touches on this
question, this most important question, not in the schools or in post-second-
ary schools. Why not?”
“Yes, it’s strange…” agreed Valentina Petrovna. “Somehow I’ve never
given that any thought, but now this state of things seems strange to me. It
seems that the Duma does discuss the question of teaching about sexual re-
lations in the schools, but they don’t consider the question of teaching
people the right way to bear and raise children.”
“So that means every couple is forced to experiment on their own child?”
“So it seems. They have to experiment. Of course there are all sorts of
classes, where expectant parents learn what to do during labor and how to
interact with a newborn, but since there’s no scientific basis for what they
teach, it’s practically impossible to determine which classes really do help
and which do more harm than good,” Valentina Petrovna answered.
“What about you, Valentina Petrovna? Did you take any of those
classes?”
