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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
I don't want Gaila to have babies until she's ready, and she's told me that won't be until she's done with college and married. I fervently hope this is true. She wants to be a marine biologist, or teach marine biology, and so this is even more ironic, because she needs science, specific science, right now. She is a girl, and of color, and in a middle-to-low-income school -- all of which puts her at risk for not having enough science and math for higher education.
Talking with parents around the state about flour bag babies, I found out that in some cities, this curriculum isn't offered at all. I wondered if that was because those districts considered their middle- or upper-income students not likely to get pregnant, which is not true, statistically. Kids of all races and income groups are having babies. But Ojai didn't offer it, San Francisco did, and Los Angeles was completely confusing. High school teachers in L.A. told me that in "at-risk" districts, it was offered, while in others, higher-income or suburban, it wasn't.
What kind of message does that send? If you're an at-risk teen, I understand parental and district concern. But aren't those the very same students who are already missing out on academics, such as more rigorous science, and who need science and math to compete at the college level, so they'll be better educated and have more incentive not to have a baby so young? Are we saying that we expect them to get pregnant, anyway?
I discussed this at a restaurant in San Francisco with two other mothers, and a member of the wait staff came over and said, with incredulity, "Am I hearing this right?"
He told us that he'd been a music teacher in Harlem. He was an avid jazz musician who loved transferring the love of art to kids, and he remembered the babies given to the students at his school: not just flour bag babies, but more lifelike, realistic babies. But the Harlem students got a crack baby, one guaranteed to be more inconsolable and shaky and desperate, just to let them know how bad that was. And the music was cut out, because it was deemed frivolous.
The second day of the baby project, our eighth-grade neighbor Whitney came in with Gaila from school and said, "I don't know why we have to do the flour bag, 'cause we have the real baby in 10th grade."
"What?" I asked.
"The baby with the key in its back, and it cries at all different times. You should hear how loud they are in church."
I looked up this real baby on a Web site, and found its name: Baby Think It Over, which, according to the site, is a "realistic educational program" that comes with a lifelike infant who cries, shakes and needs attention.
"Now a computerized doll takes over for the eggs and flour, making the experience much more like parenting and less like a Julia Child cooking class. How it works: An identification tag is attached to the teen's wrist with a tamperproof wristband to ensure that only the assigned teen can care for Baby. Baby cries for care according to schedules selected by the instructor. When Baby cries, it is the teen's responsibility to determine and provide the type of care Baby needs: feeding, rocking, burping or diapering. Sometimes Baby is just fussy and cannot be quieted by the teen. The electronics in the Baby's back monitor the quality of care Baby receives. The doll reports the number of times each type of care was provided, as well as positioning, rough handling, Shaken Baby Syndrome and more."
It retails for about $250. And I assume they make the crack-baby version I'd heard about. We'd have to do this in two years. It sounded like a combination of house arrest, colic and Big Brother.
"But 12-year-olds do get pregnant," other people pointed out.
And when these students have babies, who takes care of the infants, and the mothers? The grandmothers, we agreed.
I realize that we're trying to prevent unwanted pregnancy among teens. But Gaila, studying the flour bag that was wearing her old infant gown, the one that tied at the bottom, the one I'd pointed out many mothers might not have saved, felt insulted and demeaned. "I'm not even allowed to hold hands yet," she pointed out, with more eye rolls. She is a straight-A student, plays the trombone in the band, plays on a basketball team and was just confirmed in the Methodist church, where she lights the candles on the altar for services. She is 12.
