Fake babies?

[Gum Gnome33]

I was just watching "Bad Eggs" and thinking about how interesting an idea it is to have high school students attempt to raise some form of a fake "baby" so that they can be more aware of the consequences of unsafe sex.

Did/do any of you have to do this in HS? Please share! Personally, I didn't have to do it, but I think the near daily warnings from my mother on the subject should count for something. 🙂

Do you think it's a good idea, or is it essentially pointless because as we all know, eggs and babies are quite different and just because you can master one doesn't mean you can handle the other...? 🙂

Do you think ultimately instead of wasting time having kids do this homework assignment, teachers should acknowledge that many teens are sexually active and instead spend that time being more specific about safe sex, distributing condoms, etc?

Side note: there was another show called "Popular" on the WB which I used to love, (not "Buffy" love but it was one of my faves,) and it also had a great episode in which they had to raise these robo-babies that looked and acted like the real thing. Anyone else like that ep/show?

 

[WWGD]

Do you think ultimately instead of wasting time having kids do this homework assignment, teachers should acknowledge that many teens are sexually active and instead spend that time being more specific about safe sex, distributing condoms, etc?

Hi twin!! 😛 I agree with this part! I get why a teacher would make an egg assignment like this, and I believe that I did have to do this when I was in school (when I was very young though and most of us hadn't even thought about sex yet) just to teach us responsibility. It makes absolutely no sense to try and treat an egg as if it is a baby though!

 

[WileyDairyGnome]

There's a Parenting class in my High School where they're assigned a robot baby and they have to take it home and take care of it and stuff. And there's sensors on it so the teachers will know if the baby wasn't taken care of properly.

I never took it, but it was amusing seeing girls walk around the halls with baby dolls. 😛

BTW, I watched Bad Eggs earlier today. 😀

 

[white avenger]

I'm don't think that the idea of the egg babies were as much to teach the students about safe sex and/or abstinence as it was to introduce them to the fact that there will be some things in their adult lives that will require more than just casual attention whenever it was convenient for them between parties, dances, and hanging out with their friends. The idea of using eggs as babies was just a way of presenting the project, more practical that having the students get jobs and pay bills for a few months.

AS for having a similar experience in High School, everyone in my Agriculture class had to either raise some form of livestock or plant and care for a vegetable garden. (I cheated a little by using my horse as my project) That's pretty close to the full time care for a raw egg as far as I'm concerned.

 

[PassionBecoming]

We never had to do anything like this. I've never heard of anyone in real life having to care for an egg, but they seem to do it a lot in TV high schools...

 

[FaithsFollower]

We didn't have egg babies; we had to make our baby using a flour bag as its torso [because apparently that's how much a baby weighs]. It was interesting to say the least.

 

[hazzard]

yeah i've heard of flour babies, but not egg babies. my high school didn't do that, though.

we had to take a class called "life management" (such a waste of time), but they didn't actually teach us anything useful. i went to one of those conservative high schools that didn't teach anything but abstinence in all forms. not going to help anyone in the real world.

 

[BuffyElevated]

As part of our Home Ec class, we had to take care of "babies" for a week. Except they weren't eggs; they were these crazy dolls that would start crying at random times and you couldn't get them to shut up without taking it to the Home Ec teacher to reset it. LOL

 

[xfivebyfive]

In seventh grade we drew babies on a piece of paper and we had to write down when we fed it and changed it and put it to sleep it was stupid the only fun part was drawing the baby.

But then in tenth grade we got plant babies in science class. We had to take it with us everywhere and some people got twins and it was to help us learn about genetics and stuff it was fun. We were paired up and we raised the plants from seed to full grown plant and were graded on how well they grew. I got twins. They grew really well! Until one morning on the way to school I left them on the train lmao I cried all through science class.

 

[shadcat]

We had baby dolls with sensors. It was required in health class to carry it around for like 2-3 days. Basically it would cry and you need to put the correct chip in its tushy to make it stop. Not the best parenting skills.

 

[Spikefan31]

In year 9 I had to take care of an egg for a week and keep a diary about it. I forgot about Billy most of the time, though, and he mainly just sat in my fridge. So it didn't teach me as much about being responsible as I suppose it should have. 😀

---------- Post added at 07:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:41 PM ----------

In relation to schools teaching safe sex, they did make us practice putting condoms on plastic penises which were disguised as bananas. 😀 And we had to wait a while for more condoms to be ordered in or whatever 'cause apparently they'd been stolen or something. 😀 It was gross 'cause it made my hands all greasy or whatever and everyone complained because we go to an all girls school and didn't see why we should have to know how to put on a condom. The teacher said we had to learn about guy stuff because guys learnt about girl stuff, though my brother who went to an all boys school said he was barely taught anything about the female reproductive system and all it entails. 😀

We were also shown and taught about pretty much every other contraception device.

 

[hazzard]

In year 9 I had to take care of an egg for a week and keep a diary about it. I forgot about Billy most of the time, though, and he mainly just sat in my fridge. So it didn't teach me as much about being responsible as I suppose it should have. 😀

---------- Post added at 07:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:41 PM ----------

In relation to schools teaching safe sex, they did make us practice putting condoms on plastic penises which were disguised as bananas. 😀 And we had to wait a while for more condoms to be ordered in or whatever 'cause apparently they'd been stolen or something. 😀 It was gross 'cause it made my hands all greasy or whatever and everyone complained because we go to an all girls school and didn't see why we should have to know how to put on a condom. The teacher said we had to learn about guy stuff because guys learnt about girl stuff, though my brother who went to an all boys school said he was barely taught anything about the female reproductive system and all it entails. 😀

We were also shown and taught about pretty much every other contraception device.

this is what kids should be learning. all schools should teach that. not this abstinence bullshit.

 

[badwolf]

In highschool I got dragged into doing it by a friend who thought it would be a fun experience and she couldn't wait to be a mum. We got one of those babies that cost like a crapload (as we got reminded a million times), they cry, must be fed, changed, etc.

Had to take it home over the weekend and for two days the thing just cried and cried and it woke me in the night too. I think at one point I started crying too. I didn't like it at all. It didn't teach me anything. And what's more my friend's baby actually stopped working the night she brought it home so she didn't have to go through any of it. Which just made me angry.

 

[November]

In relation to schools teaching safe sex, they did make us practice putting condoms on plastic penises which were disguised as bananas. 😀 And we had to wait a while for more condoms to be ordered in or whatever 'cause apparently they'd been stolen or something. 😀 It was gross 'cause it made my hands all greasy or whatever and everyone complained because we go to an all girls school and didn't see why we should have to know how to put on a condom. The teacher said we had to learn about guy stuff because guys learnt about girl stuff, though my brother who went to an all boys school said he was barely taught anything about the female reproductive system and all it entails. 😀

We were also shown and taught about pretty much every other contraception device.

Thats what we were taught too, except I wagged that class. I found out about it later and was spewing cos they all got free flavoured condoms and all the girls were sucking the flavour off them at lunch time and I missed out hahaha.

We never had robot babies but I know that they use them at some of the more "high risk" schools. We did learn all about contraceptives though - over and over and over again. I swear we did nothing else in year 9 health class!

 

[BuffyElevated]

this is what kids should be learning. all schools should teach that. not this abstinence bullshit.

I don't think teaching kids abstinence is bullshit. In fact, I think they should encourage abstinence more than they do these days. Instead of encouraging our kids to have safe sex, why not encourage them not to have it at all?? That would definitely solve a lot of problems.
I do think it's good that schools have courses on how to be safe and how to be educated on the proper use of birth control products, but I hate this mentality that a lot of people seem to have that "kids are gonna do it anyway, might as well make sure they're prepared." While this may be true, it might not be SO true if people would start teaching their kids from the get go that it's better to wait- maybe not til marriage, but definitely at least til they're out of high school and are better able to handle it if something happens and someone ends up pregnant.

 

[Cast No Shadow]

My experience of sexual education was when I was 14, my teacher was at the front of the class, wrote the word "sex" on the board and asked us to shout all the words out we could think of to do with it all at once.

So 30 14 year olds started shouting, "orgy!" "penis!" "condom!" "vagina!"

After around 30 seconds, he said, "Right, now that's over with, on to Maths."

I kid you not.

 

[Gum Gnome33]

Wow, I can't believe how many of you had to do this! I feel like I missed out on a HS rite of passage...

I don't think teaching kids abstinence is bullshit. In fact, I think they should encourage abstinence more than they do these days. Instead of encouraging our kids to have safe sex, why not encourage them not to have it at all?? That would definitely solve a lot of problems.

I think the problem is that most of these high school "health" educators are in total denial about the fact that teens are curious and hormonal, and quite a few, (if not most), will be tempted to at least experiment while in high school. And for those who wait until college, wouldn't it be nice if they'd been given all of the proper information about birth control and STD prevention in high school so that they were ready? I think the truth is, kids are going to do it anyway. Almost everyone I knew was told to wait until at least college, preferably marriage, growing up. Almost none of us did...

I agree with you that kids do need to be reminded and encouraged to wait until they're really ready. But part of being "really ready" is having the right tools, you know? I guess another big part of the problem is that people who teach abstinence generally don't spend the time to formulate any convincing arguments. It's just, "don't do it! It's wrong." When they frame things like that, it's insulting to these kids' intelligence, especially when their bodies are very much telling them otherwise!

I think kids need numbers. Percentages, statistics. "X form of birth control is y percent effective, etc." "Here are the symptoms of std's." Then plenty of time can be spent having a really honest conversation about why it isn't a good idea to rush into things. Maybe instructors can share their own horror stories. I think if it's handled in a way that still acknowledges that the desire is there, and is perfectly healthy, kids are more likely to listen and consider waiting until they're more prepared to be safe about it.

 

[kittenpoker]

yeah i've heard of flour babies, but not egg babies. my high school didn't do that, though.

We did that! In middle school though (8th grade I think).... We had to carry around a 10 pound bag of flour. I think most kids just left it in their lockers. haha. Interesting story.... There was 1 twin card (two 5 pound bags instead of 1 10) and guess who got it.... (me) and also, I ended up having twins with my first pregnancy.

 

[arabella]

I feel like I had to make a flour sack baby and haul it around at some point for extra credit in health. I dont recall it having any impact on my decision making about sex or children, but it was fun.

 

[hazzard]

I don't think teaching kids abstinence is bullshit. In fact, I think they should encourage abstinence more than they do these days. Instead of encouraging our kids to have safe sex, why not encourage them not to have it at all?? That would definitely solve a lot of problems.
I do think it's good that schools have courses on how to be safe and how to be educated on the proper use of birth control products, but I hate this mentality that a lot of people seem to have that "kids are gonna do it anyway, might as well make sure they're prepared." While this may be true, it might not be SO true if people would start teaching their kids from the get go that it's better to wait- maybe not til marriage, but definitely at least til they're out of high school and are better able to handle it if something happens and someone ends up pregnant.

i hear what you're saying, but unfortunately i just don't think it works this way. kids are going to have sex and most of them are going to be completely unprepared for it because of abstinence-only education--i certainly would have been had i not learned it in other ways. if anything, i think maybe abstinence should be a part of sex education, as another option; but certainly not the only option.
it's become obvius that abstinence-only education only leads to rises in teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and more fun ways for kids to f*ck up their lives before they've barely begun.

---------- Post added at 05:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:48 PM ----------

[MENTION=8356]HisMrs[/MENTION] yes i did read your post--there's no need to be rude.
the problem with what you're saying is that statistics show that most parents and schools DO encourage abstinence only and NOT safe sex. which is why there are so many problems related to this issue because most kids are not abstinent. they're just not.