Exhalation

The author fashions this story as an excerpt from a catalog on a museum exhibition titled “Little Defective Adults—Attitudes Toward Children from 1700 to 1950” (173). In 1894, Mathematician Reginald Dacey and his wife have a son, Lionel Dacey. Unfortunately, Reginald’s wife dies during the delivery. Reginald initially relies on the help of a nanny named Nanny Gibson, but he later discovers she is cruel to Lionel. Reginald tries to find other nannies but is unsatisfied and critical of all of them. He decides only a robotic nanny live up to his childrearing standards. Reginald adheres to the Victorian mindset of the time, in which parents had little involvement in a child’s upbringing. He reasons, “Children are not born sinful, but become so because of the influence of those whose care we have placed them in” (175). He believes an Automatic Nanny will create rational children and sets out designing one.

Reginald makes a deal with “Thomas Bradford & Co.” (176) to manufacture the robot nannies. They pitch the nanny to customers by saying it “cannot steal” and won’t “expose your child to disreputable influences” (177). People take interest in the nanny, and they sell 150 in the first six months. Unfortunately, in 1901, a nanny throws and kills a child because his parents tamper with the robot’s interior springs. Reginald tries to save face, even claiming he will raise his next child using one of the Automatic Nannies. No potential wives share his goal, however, and public acceptance of the Automatic Nanny dies out. Reginald settles back into a career in mathematics until his death in 1918.

In 1925, Lionel Dacey, now a mathematician like his father, reads a critical article of the Automatic Nanny titled “Mishaps of Science” (179). Furious, Lionel vows to fulfill his father’s dream of “raising rational children” (179). The public and prospective business partners are still skeptical of the nanny, and no one buys the machine. Lionel resorts to adopting a son with the intention of raising him with an Automatic Nanny to prove everyone wrong. No one hears from Lionel or his adopted son for years.

In 1938, Dr. Thackery Lambshead is working at the “Brighton Institute of Mental Subnormality” (180). There, he finds a child named Edmund Dacey, who Lionel left at the institute. An Automatic Nanny raised Edmund until he was two, but he proved to be unresponsive to Lionel, resulting in his institutionalization. Five years old now, Edmund is small for his age, and isn’t growing like a normal child. Dr. Thackery discovers “what Edmund needed was not more contact with a person, but more contact with a machine” (181). To spark a normal development cycle in Edmund, Dr. Thackery seeks out Lionel, wishing to acquire an Automatic Nanny.

Dr. Thackery learns that Edmund is Lionel’s illegitimate son, a byproduct of Lionel’s intimate relationship with a maid at an orphanage. Lionel blames Edmund’s deficiencies on his mother not being of “suitable stock” (182). Lionel sells Thackery one of the nannies, which the doctor then brings to Edmund at the institution. Edmund flourishes with the Automatic Nanny, gaining “a steady increase in his height and weight, confirming [Dr. Thackery’s] diagnosis” (182). Seeing this, Dr. Thackery believes Edmund needs “a mechanical instructor” (182) to develop properly.

In 1946, Dr. Thackery acquires a pair of mechanical arms designed to handle radioactive material. He brings them to Edmund, now 13, who is still at the institute. The institute staff manipulate their voices with a speaker to sound more robotic and utilize the remotes arms to try to teach Edmund. They discover “Edmund was not cognitively delayed in the manner previously believed; the staff had merely lacked the appropriate means of communicating with him” (183). Again, Edmund Flourishes.

Dr. Thackery relays this success to Lionel, who then comes to finally visit Edmund. Lionel is tormented by the state of his son. Furthermore, Lionel feels he has failed his own father as well. Seeking atonement, Lionel buys a pair of robot arms and an intercom system. He takes Edmund home, and he spends the rest of his life raising his son through “machine mediated interaction” (184). In 1966, Edmund dies of pneumonia. Lionel destroys all his Automatic Nannies and dies a year after Edmund.

Dr. Thackery, on the other hand, still has an Automatic Nanny, the one used to help Edmund grow when he was five. Dr. Thackery donates his Automatic Nanny to the museum exhibition. The story ends with a note in the catalogue thanking the doctor for his “donation of this unique artifact” (184).