Then there was the story Amber’s mom had told her about a girl named Bethy. The story was designed to scare Amber about ever thinking about giving a baby away to the State in order to get a class advance. It was a true story.
Bethy had arrived at a State Labor Commune at the age of two days. The parents were C class and had opted to give their first born to the State in return for the usual incentives.
The State Labor Commune had no shortage of female adults ready and able to care for an infant in the Baby Wards. The Baby Wards were institutionalized baby raising “machines” staffed by females only. The setting was communal, not a family unit. If any female adult was observed getting too emotionally attached to a baby or a baby to her, she would be immediately transferred to another Ward.
Babies instantly identified themselves as part of a community, not individual family. Bethy was placed in Baby Ward 5, and cared for round the clock by a dedicated staff of twenty-seven females, whose soul job in the commune was raising about seventy-five babies at a time. They weren’t just any females. They were supermoms, selected, trained, and observed to possess the best communal baby raising talents.
At the age of two, Bethy was moved to Young Child Ward 8, where another group of supermoms raised her and a hundred other toddlers. Every two years, she advanced to the next Ward.
By age ten she was moved to the Work Prep Ward. There she was aptitude tested to determine the best type of work she’d be most suited for. She spent the remaining time up to her twelfth birthday training for her vocation.
By the age of twelve, most of the children were made full time workers. What they did all depended on their personally, aptitude, training, and education. They were individually groomed for the occupation that would yield maximum production efficiency in the work place. Bethy was trained and ready by age twelve to be a food prep worker, in the fresh vegetable Garden to Table program. Her job was to help wash, slice, and package fresh vegetables and fruit for the daily mess hall meals that everyone partook of.
Raising children at a labor commune was not a problem. In fact, the children thrived. There was a sense of work, community, and lots of play for the children. Entire facilities were geared to raising them, educating them, and indoctrinating them to a lifetime membership.
Children were culturally raised to accept a life of service to the State. They didn’t complain. At least not after the first few times they were caught complaining. And with few exceptions, no one left or even considered it. They were raised and taught with much propaganda from day one that the outside world was largely unfriendly and unsafe.
One exception to a lifetime of service in the labor communes could be granted to pretty females. The Marriage to Freedom program allowed State owned female slaves to be married out to free people, for a specified period of time or permanently. The price was a sizeable sum of money and the agreement to provide two newborn babies back to the program within a five year span, regardless of whether the female was the actual mother or not.
Only the very pretty females were lucky enough to be posted on the Line for the A and B class to discover. Maybe lucky wasn’t the right word. Although they were pretty, they usually didn’t make very good wives or do well on the “outside,” having been raised without any of the emotional bonds that would come from a family unit. They knew nothing about being faithful to a husband. Usually, they were less happy in their free lives unless there was a lot of counseling available.
That is why a temporary marriage, with the option of permanence, was the best arrangement for all parties. It was also most lucrative for the State, as they got a sum of money, another two souls, and in all likelihood the woman back eventually.
Unfortunately, according to Amber’s mother’s story, Bethy did not qualify for the Marriage to Freedom program. Her parents must have fallen from an ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down because her looks would not grant her any such opportunity of escape from the State commune system.