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.