Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness

Host: The factory was quiet for once — the machines had stopped, and the air still carried the scent of metal and oil. Outside, the sky was the color of iron, a dull grey that pressed down on the city. The windows were fogged, streaked with rain, and the sound of distant traffic hummed like a tired heartbeat.

Jack and Jeeny sat on an overturned crate, sharing the last of a thermos of coffee. The lights above them flickered, and in the corner, an old radio played something soft and crackling — a voice reading quotes from great thinkers.

Then it came — clear, sardonic, unmistakable:
“Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.”

Jeeny looked up, her brow furrowed, her hands tightening around the cup. Jack chuckled — that low, dry laugh that always meant trouble.

Jack: “Ah, Shaw. The man never missed a chance to insult humanity with the truth.”

Jeeny: “He wasn’t insulting — he was pleading. Parenthood should be the most sacred calling in the world, and yet anyone can enter it. No training, no test, no proof that they even understand what it means to raise another soul.”

Jack: “You make it sound like there should be an exam. Imagine that — ‘Congratulations, you’ve passed the empathy test. You may now have a child.’”

Jeeny: “Why not? We test for driving, for medicine, for piloting planes — all to prevent harm. But for the creation and shaping of a human life? Nothing. Just instinct and accident.”

Host: The rain tapped against the metal roof, slow and deliberate, as though the sky itself was listening. The steam from their coffee rose, mingling with the dust and the faint odor of old grease.

Jack: “You can’t regulate love, Jeeny. You can’t make a license for biology. People have children because they want to believe in continuity, not because they’re qualified.”

Jeeny: “And that’s exactly the problem. We don’t treat it as a responsibility — only as a right. But rights without consciousness are just accidents in motion.”

Jack: “You’re being idealistic. The world’s messy. It always has been. Every generation inherits the chaos and tries to do better — that’s how it works. You can’t build a bureaucracy for the heart.”

Jeeny: “I’m not talking about bureaucracy, Jack. I’m talking about awareness. About teaching people what nurture means before they’re handed another life to shape.”

Jack: “You can’t teach what can’t be measured. Some of the best parents I’ve known couldn’t even read, and some of the worst had degrees on their walls. You think a test would fix that?”

Jeeny: “Not a test — a transformation. A shift in values. We train for profit, for efficiency, for control — but we don’t train for care. Why is parenthood treated as instinct, when it’s the most complex profession of all?”

Host: The radio crackled, a burst of static that briefly filled the silence. A truck rumbled past outside, its headlights cutting through the mist, throwing long shadows across their faces.

Jack: “Because complexity isn’t the same as control. You can’t design perfect parents any more than you can design perfect children. Sometimes the flaws are the very things that teach.”

Jeeny: “So, suffering as a curriculum? That’s your philosophy?”

Jack: “No. Just reality. Every child grows up seeing their parents’ mistakes and swearing they’ll never repeat them — until they do. That’s the cycle. You can’t legislate human nature.”

Jeeny: “You can educate it. You can elevate it. Shaw wasn’t saying we should control people — he was saying we should protect children. That maybe love isn’t enough without wisdom.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice had grown sharper, the kind of edge that only comes from conviction born of witness. Jack looked at her — really looked — and saw the tremor in her hands, the tiredness that spoke of something personal.

Jack: “You sound like you’re talking from experience.”

Jeeny: “Maybe I am.”

Host: She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask. The rain intensified, rattling against the windows, filling the space with its unforgiving rhythm.

Jeeny: “I once knew a boy. He used to hide behind the church, waiting for his father to sober up. Every night he’d trace the cracks in the wall, like a map he couldn’t escape. And the world called that man a parent, simply because biology said so.”

Jack: “And yet the boy grew up, didn’t he?”

Jeeny: “He survived, Jack. That’s not the same as growing.”

Host: The words hung like smoke, dense and unmoving. Jack took a long drag from his cigarette, his eyes lost in the distance, where the rain blurred the city’s lights into trembling halos.

Jack: “You think there’s a world where people could be… trained for compassion?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Not with rules, but with reflection. If we can teach math, we can teach empathy. If we can engineer skyscrapers, we can engineer care. The tragedy is, we just don’t value it.”

Jack: “And who decides what a good parent is? You? Me? The government?”

Jeeny: “No one decides. Everyone learns. That’s the difference. It’s not about judging, it’s about preparing. Imagine if every would-be parent had to spend a week with orphans, or with children in hospitals. Imagine what that would teach.”

Jack: “That would teach them pain.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And that’s where understanding begins.”

Host: The lights buzzed, then dimmed, leaving their faces half in shadow, half in light — a fitting symmetry for a conversation that balanced idealism and resignation.

Jack: “You know, sometimes I think Shaw just wanted to provoke. He had that sharp, moral cynicism that makes people uncomfortable.”

Jeeny: “And sometimes the only way to wake people up is to unsettle them.”

Host: The radio crackled again, this time with a piano tune — somber, almost funereal. The factory clock ticked, a slow, mechanical pulse marking the passing of their thoughts.

Jeeny: “You know what’s funny, Jack? If we treated parenthood as a profession, we’d have to admit it’s the most underpaid, undertrained, and overburdened one in existence.”

Jack: “And yet it’s the only one that creates every other.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: Her eyes met his, and something in the space between them softened — the anger, the idealism, all distilled into a quiet, shared truth.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what Shaw meant all along. Not that we need tests, but that we need to stop pretending it’s easy. That parentage isn’t a right, but a calling.”

Jeeny: “A calling that deserves to be answered with more than instinct.”

Host: The rain slowed, the clock ticked once more, and the radio fell into silence. Outside, the city breathed again — the smell of wet concrete, the echo of footsteps, the distant laughter of someone heading home.

Jeeny stood, pulled her coat tighter, and looked toward the door.

Jeeny: “Maybe one day, Jack, we’ll learn to raise children not just to survive the world — but to change it.”

Jack: “And maybe that’ll be the day we finally deserve them.”

Host: The lights flickered once more, and then the factory fell into darkness — two silhouettes, a faint glow of cigarette ember, and the sound of rain fading into memory.

In the silence, Shaw’s words still lingered, like an unspoken warning — and a prayer.