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<title> "We're a happy family" </title>
"The Fifth Child", by Doris Lessing, deals with Harriet and David Lovatt; how they see the world, and choices they make. They feel they are meant to be. That they are in quest of the "happy family"; for them, this conception almost has a religious ring to it. The Lovatts have traditional values that, paradoxically, are radical in the time and place they live. They are very judgmental, and are trying to shut the world out, but they want their relatives to be a part of their happy family. However, there is often tension between them, mainly because of dogmatic values of the Lovatts. When they have their fifth child, Ben, these relationship-problems escalate. David and Harriet also experience a serious crack in their own relationship; it is no longer the two of them against the world. There are important moral decisions to make, which they have to make as individuals. 
	One aspect of the theme is a belief in fatalism; that one gets what one deserves. This is obvious in the description of how Harriet and David meet, but also in Harriet's view of her sister Sarah. The sisters may be seen as something of antagonists. They compare their lives, and, before Ben is born, Harriet is the winner. Her children are healthy, her husband has a good job and a rich father, and Dorothy spends all her time there. "Happiness/.../The Lovatts were a happy family. It was what they had chosen and what they deserved" (p. 28). Sarah had a Down's syndrome baby, Amy, which was not bad luck according to Harriet: "...their quarelling had probably attracted the mongol child" (p. 29). After Ben is born things change. Suddenly Amy is not the worse of fate. Sarah says: "That Ben gives me the creeps. He's like a goblin or a dwarf or something. I'd rather have Amy any day" (p. 68). At one time Harriet is rejecting herself being a victim of fate (p. 80). Yet, years later, when the Lovatts' world is falling apart because of Ben, Harriet blames fate: "We are being punished/.../For presuming. For thinking we could be happy" (p. 141). 
	Another aspect of the theme is the Lovatts' feeling of superiority, which eventually changes to impotence. In the beginning they are trying to shut the "real world" out of their world. Harriet and David are upset about criminal gangs hanging around the cafés. They read the newspapers, because "...they ought to know what went on outside their fortress" (p. 30). However, they did not follow the pattern of family-life in England at that time: "It had been hard preserving their belief in themselves when the spirit of the times, the greedy and selfish sixties, had been so ready to condemn them..." (p. 29). They get remarks about having many children at a fast pace. Harriet once told Dorothy: "Do you realize that having six children, in another part of the world, it would be normal/.../they aren't made to feel criminals" (p. 22). After Ben is born, they can no longer live according to their sacred values. They have to give up their self-righteousness. David has ironically become a careerist, and has lost "the self that was a family man" (p. 135). He has to work hard, so that they can pay members of the criminal gang - i.e. the same people they used to despise - to look after Ben. 
A third aspect of the theme concerns the moral dilemma: what to do with Ben? It is no longer Harriet and David against the cruel, outside world. They have now to deal with cruelty in their own precious world. They react very differently. Harriet is the first to admit there is something wrong with Ben. Davis rejects this notion to start with. Yet, when he finally admits this, he demands of Harriet that they let Ben go to an institution; to die. David has a utilitarian view. He no longer sees Ben as his child (e.g. p. 90), and is prepared to sacrifice him for the good of the rest of the family. Harriet cannot make this difficult decision: "...if I had let him die, then all of us, so many people, would have been happy, but I could not do it..." (p. 157). Her decision may be fatal, however, not only to the family, but to others as well. Ben is a monster, who no one can control. When Harriet hears of a rape; she believes it might be her own son who did it. The son she let out. 
The theme of this book may be the ongoing process of the Lovatts. They chose a lifestyle, which did not agree with prevailing values of the society they live in. To start with, they thrived on their lifestyle. They fled the real world and created their own. Self-righteously they presumed that they deserved all happiness, and they were quite judgmental to people less fortunate. They were caught up by reality, though, and they could no longer live by their principles. Harriet and David had to make vital decisions, and they had to make them separately. The setting of the book may be important to the outside world's reaction to the Lovatts' choice of lifestyle. However, to the most important part of the theme - the moral dilemma: what they should do about Ben - I do not find the setting be a crucial factor. It does not matter where and when you live; the question of sacrificing one life for the sake of others' is as hard wherever, and whenever it is raised.
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