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<title> The Impossibility of a Perfect Domesticity </title>
In the unconstrained atmosphere of England in the 60's Harriet and David Lovatt defy "the greedy and selfish"1 spirit of the times with their version of tradition and normalcy: fidelity, love, a big wonderful house, and large family. But things don't work out the way they want. Therefore the main theme seems to be the impossibility of family tradition and normalcy in today's society. There are many signs of weakness in domesticity in the setting, which all refer back to this theme. This is part of the issue on the impossibility of a perfect family life.
The expectations of the Lovatt's never-ending future family discussion are great, Harriet tending the family, David out working. Perfection is what they want to create and they quickly reach their climax when buying a large Victorian house outside London. The house is perfect including lots of rooms for their unborn children. On the other hand David's wealthy father has to pay off some of the mortgage. Already there the dream of a perfect family life is out of reach, since they are not wealthy enough themselves. Anything good has its price and the house is the first sign confirming that. Even as the day's events take a dark turn with ominous surge in crime and unemployment the Lovatts cling to their belief that their happiness will preserve them from the world outside. Harriet believes that unhappiness attracts bad luck. "As long as you are happy nothing will happen to you"2. At first all is idyllic. "The Lovatts were a happy family. It was what they had chosen and what they deserved"3. Then the children start arriving and there seems no end to it. Harriet is almost constantly pregnant. Friends of the family come and stay with them now and then admiring the domesticity the couple has created.
But you also get a premonition of what is going to happen: "More and more it seemed that two peoples lived in England - not one. Enemies hating each other - who could not hear what the other said4. Their own house has become a safety area but right outside the world is changing into the opposite. The idea of perfection no longer seems as obvious as before to Harriet and David. Still they hold on to their dreams, refusing to give them up. The children fill their lives and it's with the fifth pregnancy that things really begin to sour. For example each of the other children were born in the house, but the fifth child wasn't. After a difficult pregnancy, the baby develops faster and grows much bigger than ordinary infants. Baby Ben is unloving and instinctively disliked by his brothers and sisters. His alien presence wrecks the dream of the happy family life. Harriet struggles to love and care for this alien child but finds herself unable to cope. Suddenly the Lovatts' vision of the world as a simple place is desperately threatened by the mere existence of one of their own children. Harriet clings to her dream of a perfect family life, more and more forgetting her other children and while focusing on the destroyer, the nasty child. David on the other hand, sticks to their old ideals in another way. He chooses the easy way and simply ignores Ben, the misfit and even sends him away to a sure death. Instinctively Harriet brings him back home, although she deep inside knows this will ruin her relationship with her other children. Mother and father therefore differ in their way of behaving when this difficult child enters their world. Therefore the good parts of their domestic life slowly disappear. The poisonous child becomes the devil playing with her happiness, since she totally depends on him. He finds strange alien youths of his own kind with whom he hangs around. Harriet refuses to realise that her son is actually one of the upcoming criminals disintegrating society and only longs for a place where she can live quietly with her husband.
The Fifth Child is a novel that put old-fashioned family thinking to an edge by focusing on its problems in an extreme way. Perfection in domesticity is impossible in a world dealing with crimes and violence. Anyone can get a child like Ben. The friends he hangs around with are probably only a few of his kind. Therefore it is impossible to create domestic normalcy today. A family is built upon such many different wills and the rest of the world has a great influence on dometicity, which is why perfection is unreliable. 
1 The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing, page 29
2 ibid. p.29
3 ibid. p.28
4 ibid. p.30
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