“And so she’ll be a teacher,” says the doctor. “This means she won’t receive the inoculation that you two, most people, got at birth.” The doctor is following a script, but there’s warmth in her voice. “Custodians of society, like what she’s been chosen to be, need to feel the full spectrum of what we’re meant to feel.” I know the doctor herself isn’t inoculated, so I wonder if she feels good about delivering this news – or if she dreads it. “Throughout her life, she’ll receive mentorship, and you’ll also get support.” I suppose she’s used to this by now.

We all know that our newborns could be selected, but we never think it’ll be our child. I’ve read about parents trying to bargain their kids out of it; some fall into denial; others feel pride. Denial and bargaining make sense. After all, hearing that your child won’t be inoculated against negative feelings – rage, anger, sadness – is scary, especially because most of us have never known those feelings. And I understand why some might feel proud: selecting children at birth to perform noble roles helped pull humanity back from the brink.

But I don’t feel denial or pride – just numbness that spreads from my chest out through my body. Then come the questions. They hand me a booklet meant to answer “all your nitty-gritty questions.” The first few pages cover the role my newborn daughter will play, her duties, and the ways she’ll help our world. There’s a timeline of her education, her mentorship, the exact date she’ll graduate, and when she’ll start her work.

“Thusia, listen to me,” her mother says, cupping her small head, and tilting her soft black eyes downward. “We may never truly know you, but I promise you will know us.” It feels like we’re mourning her even as she’s born. She paws at my wife’s hand as thoughts whirl around my head. Even if I’ve never felt anger and rage, I know they can destroy a person, and wreck the ones around them. Will anxiety or pity shorten her life?

As children, we learned about these feelings. Sadness, they told us, is a weight in our tummies that “drags on our ability to enjoy things around us.” Anger is “heat directed at a person or situation,” and pity is “ingesting another’s sadness.” These feelings don’t help when everyone feels them. They make us greedy, short-sighted, proud, and competitive. But they still play a role: those who guide society, like Thusia will one day, must feel the full range of human emotion. That’s what our teachers – the not-inoculated ones – tell us. Society needs a memory of these things; they help inform better choices.

Looking at my daughter, all the academics fall away. As the nurse helps my wife gather her things, I gaze at a star out the hospital window, trying to imagine the opposite of the awe I feel. It must be insignificance. A buzz prickles the back of my neck, and shivers move up my arms. The nurse’s voice breaks through: “Let’s go, Dad.”

At home, my wife weeps. Not from sadness or fear – she, like me, was inoculated at birth – but from uncertainty. “Anger must hurt so badly if it makes people do all those things.” I touch her hair and pull her close. Her tears soak into my shirt. “The fighting and the cruelty… what if she does those things too?”

“It’s a gift, I think,” I murmur. Her whimpers quiet. “Thusia gets to be whole. She’ll know things we never will.”

“Is there any way we can get an exception?” The bargaining begins. “Could they swap her with a child in a family who wants this for them?”

“She was chosen, and they made a good choice.”

A question settles in me, one that, I suppose, parents of the past pondered: How do I make the brutal tender? “Honey, our parents weren’t inoculated. They coped, and so will we.” My wife, cheeks still wet, falls asleep on me.

The booklet the doctor gave me has a picture of young adults in uniforms for various roles: doctor, academic, surgeon, and engineer. They stand in front of a civic building with tall white pillars. A flag waves behind them. The first page advises parents of chosen children not to “think too much about what they will feel and what you can’t” and instead to “focus on the job and educational security your child has been afforded.”

A gurgle, a dim whimper, pulls me from the booklet. My daughter is restless on her first night. Her blue eyes are hidden behind chubby squints, her small hands and tuft of black hair barely visible. This wrinkly creature, my wrinkly creature, will be allowed to hate, rage, and feel—and to serve her community. It’s a fact, and it’s her duty. Resisting it would be rejecting the society we built out of near-ruin.

My parents faced the uncertainty of what lay ahead for me; I face the certainty of her path— and the certainty of her pain and sadness. I can almost see her life as clearly as I see her here now. There’s a stability in certainty. There’s nobleness in service.

I fall asleep beside her crib. Her soft, even breaths remind me of the cool Hawaiian breeze from our honeymoon. Some parents feel pride. Thusia will live a good life and be a good person. I am proud of her.