The Happiness Myth_ An Expose - Jennifer Hecht [39]
Pregnancy is a hot-spot cultural moment: the stakes—the physical creation of the future nation—are high, so all the moment’s anxieties swell with import. We are rushed yet sedentary; we are artificially stimulated; we live in processed air and eat processed food and drink. So we have our pregnant women go to prenatal yoga classes, get prenatal massages, and eat organic food. Why were they not doing this before, for their own sake? Because pregnancy is a performance, a place for women to act out whatever the culture thinks is good. For us, that turns out to be about working less; resting; getting involved with Eastern relaxation techniques (acupuncture and acupressure as well as yoga); getting big doses of calcium, minerals, and vitamins; allowing a general plumpness; and limiting the intake of anything that could be called a drug. Different historical moments protect their fertility in different ways. They make different arrangements.
In these arrangements, the happiness of the pregnant woman is no small concern—to herself or to others. She gets controlled, but also gets the culture’s acceptable treats or indulgences, whether that means drugs that make you happy, or time to stand in a room performing Downward Dog with a bunch of other women with enormous bellies. The pregnant woman no longer seems to need her husband to run out and get pickles and ice cream; that now seems like a performance to show that her husband was going to do what she asked when it came to the baby. This performance is now enacted in attendance at birthing classes. Happiness drugs are not really gone, though. If our girl is on Zoloft when she gets pregnant, her obstetrician’s AMA-approved advice is to stay on the drug. The terms used are: “These women get so much benefit from these drugs that it outweighs the risk.” Size of benefit outweighs risk. Again, the benefit is not just to the woman. An upset pregnant woman is no one’s idea of fun. It is explicitly stated in the culture that a happy mother is conducive to a healthy baby. Happy is good—still, notice how sober, vigilant, and earnest this version of happiness is.
You may say that had they only been equipped with our science, the nineteenth-century doctors who gave laudanum casually—to irritable women, loud babies, and everyone else—would not have done it. I assert, on the contrary, they would have used science to make a laudanum “safe” for pregnant women—that is, one that is not associated with street drugs and that does not remove her entirely from the productive world. Indeed, that is what they have done. Consider this: We know that children die because of car crashes. We do not say, “Never let your child in a car until the early teens when he or she fits properly in a seat belt.” This would save the lives of many children, but we are not doing it. “Buckle up for safety” will do. I propose the following campaign: “Save a life! Never put your child in a car! Let’s make it the law!” It is not likely to catch on. It would be too inconvenient. Everything about the way families live would have to change. With happiness drugs, an arrangement gets made based on various insistences of drug users, drug distributors, and the rest of society. Science can only assist in justifying whatever arrangements get made by everyone else. What risks are worth taking, what is seemly, and what penalties are worth incurring just aren’t scientific questions.
The process of weighing benefits is cultural and historical. We are a historical moment, like any other, and our attitudes toward happiness drugs are such that we feel all sorts of guilt, pride, and pressure. These feel serious and real, but much of our attitude is a shared fantasy of societal needs and the playing out of cultural mythologies. Imagine that at some soon future time the birthrate of the United States (or that of a group within it) declines, and people begin to locate all their anxieties in a fear of national depletion. Wouldn’t Prozac be seen as dangerous because it diminishes sexual feelings? Researchers might spend more