High school students in the Mexican state of Chihuahua are being made to care for screaming, hiccuping baby dolls that run on computer chips to try to bring down the state’s soaring teenage pregnancy rate.
Here is the story. Thanks to jb for the pointer.
in 5th grade we had to carry eggs around for a week and pretend they were babies. we failed the assignment if we were caught in the hall or in class without our egg and we failed if the egg was cracked or broken or lost at the end of the week.
I had to do this in high school for an entire weekend. I was graded on it.
If I didn’t attend to the needs of the “baby” fast enough my grade was
lowered. Luckily, we were allowed to have partners so I outsourced the
majority of my “parenting” work to my female partner. Bar none, this was
the most infuriating homework assignment I have ever been given.
Of course it’s just propaganda, not education. The experience
provides all the downside of having a child, with none of the
upside. Hardly a suitable basis for deciding whether you want
to have a child or not.
Apparently, there is some evidence that the U.S. programs
are not effective:
http://www.webmd.com/news/20000310/lifelike-doll-encourage-teen-pregnancies
I actually have a related story on my blog today about my brother’s experience with similar dolls, and how easy it is for a kid to work the system. A little duct tape works wonders.
And as to the previous poster who talks about Catholic Engaged Encounter: My wife and I did the same thing. It was a very positive experience for us. Yes, they’re there to talk about hurdles and obstacles in marriage, but the people we interacted with were uniformly positive about the whole thing. We talked with a bunch of people who’d been happily married for twenty or thirty years. I think you just got a bad set of leaders.
thank you very much for this article
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