It used to be that whenever there was talk about designer babies, fifty five dollar words like embryos and fertility, electro-microsopes and gene sequencing would be thrown around.
The idea, on paper, was for human beings to control their children’s destinies, to alleviate the suffering genetic mutations may visit in their lives after being born, to remove any interference or surprises unleashed by fate.
Fate’s not a bad thing if you believe in it. It’s not a bad thing, sometimes, wanting control. It’s something human beings strive for, an opportunity to fight off death, to hold onto our time on this blue dustball we call Earth.
For some paren’s however, it’s also an opportunity to invest and make millions. Parents like Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith whose daughter Willow Smith‘s “Whip My Hair” is blaring from speakers on Fulton Street on a crowded Saturday afternoon early this spring in Brooklyn. Nearby her brother Jaden is kicking ass on video in a storefront window of a five dollar DVD joint in “The Karate Kid.”
As a whole, the Smith kids seem to be perfect little machines in running and turning in the cogs of the Hollywood and entertainment system, miniscule clones of their parents who are both singers and actors in Hollywood. In interviews, Jaden Smith sounds like his dad. When she sings, Willow wails like her mom Jada. Taken together these preteens represent what control will look like now, the future, a future filled with designer children and adults made through psychology or technology.
After the break, other instances of human beings trying to trump their fate.
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Willow and her mama Jada at The Kids Choice Awards earlier this year.
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Reality TV star Heidi Montag got breast implants, a nose job and a facelift, to name three out of almost a dozen things to improve her success in Hollywood.
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We’re not saying Angel Loa Luv’s butt is fake. We’re just sayin’.
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“Octo-Mom” Nadya Suleiman admitted on Oprah that she had psychological problems after agreeing to conceive and give birth to 8 babies created by invitro-fertilization.
