Teens taking care of pretend babies (school project)

[redtech]

We did this in 8th grade (Catholic Gradeschool) and also Freshman in High School. In 8th grade, we had a raw egg. If it came back cracked, we failed. The teacher broke them all on the last day to make sure none had been hard boiled. We didn’t have to take them to school every day but we were supposed to take them everywhere else we went.

Then in Freshman year of high school we had the bag of flour… but only the girls had it. That always made me mad.

 

[Jonah]

(did not read all post)

In the facility where I work; we use the dolls. We use them not to prevent girls from having babies, but so that the girls will learn how to take care of their babies.

My daugh. was 4 when I started to have the urge to have another child. I had forgotten the about early morning feedings, diapers and all the other things and worries that come with babies. I don’t see any danger using these doll in high school. The girls need to know the responsibility of having a baby. And when the clock starts ticking (God is Good) there is just no satisfying it except to conceive. Hopefully the woman will be married and out of high school.

ETA: One of the girls was having a hard time with her baby doll. The doll was crying and she couldn’t get it to stop. She got frustrated and said she was NOT going to take care of the stupid doll and for someone to please remove the battery out of the doll. I told her that battery would not be removed and if it was her real baby she wouldn’t have batteries to take out. Her response "This is a stupid doll, I wouldn’t feel that way about my REAL baby.

A few weeks later thus girl had her baby. The baby is a crier, and sad to say that the girl get frustrated with the baby. She asked me to go get the baby because she couldn’t take it anymore…

So the baby doll… is a good thing… especially if it keeps baby girls from going out and getting pregnant. It’s really all about maturity.

 

[rayne89]

In highschool, we had eggs (in child developement class). We got to decorate our eggs, faces, hair ect and name our eggs. We took out eggs everywhere or had to hire a babysitter. We drew slips of paper, some eggs were healthy some had illnesses. Mine had cystic fibrosis. I had to do a report on cystic fibrosis.Those with healthy eggs had to do a report on the cost of raising children from birth to eighteen. All had keep a journal on caring for our egg -“feedings”, “diaper changes” ect. It was a fun project, hardly preventitive.

My friend’s daughter had the crying doll last year. Two weeks ago we found out she is pregnant. Scaring our children about raising children does about as much scaring them about STD’s -not much.

 

[C.T]

Then in Freshman year of high school we had the bag of flour… but only the girls had it. That always made me mad.

That makes me mad too. I mean, it may be realistic to let the girls know that the boys are unlikely to help in case of a real baby, but if the point of the project is to teach that babies are a big responsibility that needs to be taught to boys as well. And, if anyone really does hope for chastity as a result of this project, won’t it be more effective to teach both genders the value of waiting until marriage instead of setting up a dynamic of men who have no reason to say no and women who have to fight against that.

As a Catholic, pro-life, feminist I can’t think of one good reason to separate the genders for this project. I’m not sure anyone should have to do this sort of project, as I’m unsure that it succeeds in teaching anything realistic about babies, sex, the sanctity of life, etc., but I’d be furious if there had been boys at my school and they were exempt from the project.

I know this isn’t exactly on topic, but my mother, who taught second grade in a Catholic school for most of her career, kept gerbils in her class as an age-appropriate sex-ed tool. They mated at night, so the kids weren’t exposed to that, and births tended to be nocturnal too (although on occasion they birthed in front of the kids and that was OK too, as gerbil births aren’t gory or loud). But the dad was a very involved parent. (Not like a father hamster, who will eat the young.) Often, the male would stay awake, watching his mate and children sleep, or carry the babies back to her when they strayed, or cuddle them while she fed. It wasn’t equal parenting, but it was shared parenting. I like to think that some of those 7 year old boys learned a little something about being a man when they saw the diligence and tender care of the male gerbils. Not everyone has the benefit of younger siblings. Even in a large family, someone has to be the last baby of the family. I’m all for explicit teaching of the value of chastity and the responsibility of parenthood, but I question the methods applied in most high schools.

 

[THutch04]

Ooo I remember doing this for a week in my sophomore year of high school. On mine though, part of the first key that was used broke off (not from me, from someone using it before me) and was lodged in the hole. So, because of this, sometimes when I went to put the key in, the crying wouldn’t stop!!! And you have to do it in a certain amount of time or it records it as a neglect. You can probably imagine my embarrassment when it happened during a test!

I have a much younger brother, so I was prepared for the crying (mine actually had a pretty good cycle, and I was able to figure it out by the end of the week). Of course, when it wasn’t a child I was caring for, I could always just go back to sleep!!! Obviously I couldn’t do that with this project. And of course you aren’t always able to stop a baby’s crying either. I wouldn’t say it was such a bad experience.