Recently I read an article somewhere that reminisced about a classic home ec assignment: caring for an egg as a baby stand-in. The author confessed that their egg cracked well before the week was up, but added (paraphrase), "Don't worry, your eggs are safe these days. Most high schools now use robotic baby dolls that provide instant feedback if, for instance, their 'parent' holds the bottle at the wrong angle, and transmits the information to a central server. Students' grades reflect the collected information."
I can't be alone in finding this horrifying. First of all, I doubt that MOST high schools use this system, but the ones that do should focus on teaching their kids sex ed and reading skills so they can wait until an appropriate age to have babies and can read "What to Expect" their own selves. Those high schools should then take the money they saved and give it to the neighboring school district, where the school committee spends its time figuring out how to afford new textbooks instead of pondering whether robotic babies are superior to eggs in teen parenting simulations.
School resource issues aside, can you imagine if that kind of data was collected about your interactions with your real baby? If every time you screwed up, a computer somewhere was keeping track? Forget holding the bottle at the wrong angle. Today, while taking the baby out of his carseat and juggling bags on the way into daycare, I bumped his little head right into the doorknob. X wailed for a minute or two while I hugged him and apologized, and then he calmed down and went about his business. He'll never remember that. Thank goodness nobody is recording it in a long list of mommy transgressions and grading my parenting skills.
I can't be alone in finding this horrifying. First of all, I doubt that MOST high schools use this system, but the ones that do should focus on teaching their kids sex ed and reading skills so they can wait until an appropriate age to have babies and can read "What to Expect" their own selves. Those high schools should then take the money they saved and give it to the neighboring school district, where the school committee spends its time figuring out how to afford new textbooks instead of pondering whether robotic babies are superior to eggs in teen parenting simulations.
School resource issues aside, can you imagine if that kind of data was collected about your interactions with your real baby? If every time you screwed up, a computer somewhere was keeping track? Forget holding the bottle at the wrong angle. Today, while taking the baby out of his carseat and juggling bags on the way into daycare, I bumped his little head right into the doorknob. X wailed for a minute or two while I hugged him and apologized, and then he calmed down and went about his business. He'll never remember that. Thank goodness nobody is recording it in a long list of mommy transgressions and grading my parenting skills.
