We will all have the opportunity to be with-women, with-men, and with-people. Birthing parents will be accompanied by with-women, with-men, and with-people whenever and for as long as they like.
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Even in the more rarely used special units, anything that needs to beep will beep in harmony with anything else that must beep, but beeping will ideally be kept to a minimum. The environment will work in concert with rather than against the work of birth.
The architects will have remembered that cleanliness and comfort are not necessarily at odds; that the colour white and the idea of cleanliness are not synonymous.
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Those of us old enough to remember will try not to wince when we recall the old approach to birthing: how quickly we reached for forceps, the ventouse, or how hastily we incised. Where once there was a culture of fear and distrust, there will be a culture of joyous anticipation and mutual support. This will be symbolically and practically recognised in the smelting and refashioning of the excess instruments into playground swing A-frames or the skeleton of a pushchair.
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This new culture will manifest in the explosion of The Family and/or the conceptual expansion of family. The ties will not be slackened so as to reject responsibility for young people, but to acknowledge our shared responsibility for each and every child—to whom we will be always kind.
We will give babies names and, since that which is given will not signify permanence or stasis or obligation, we will be thrilled and hold a special ceremony when they decide to change it for an hour, a day, a week, or for all time. We will look back on the names we have had the way we look back on ages we have been or clothes we have worn for a time, in recognition of our talent for shifting.
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