It’s that time of year again at BHS when all students, boy and girl, enrolled in a Child Development class bring home their first baby. Now this isn’t a real baby, but rather a mechanical baby that cries, burps, and has to be changed and cared for just like a real one. 

    It’s not the same as caring for a real baby but it gets the message across about how difficult it is to care for a child alone at such a young age.

    “It gives a realistic view of what being responsible for an infant is like,” Child Development teacher Brenda Huvar said.“It’s good for every teen to think about parenthood before it accidentally happens. It makes them think twice before doing something risky.”

    Now we all know that Texas is a very large state (with a population of  25,883,999) so naturally we have many teenagers, but how many of them are pregnant? In the year 2005 alone, Texas had the highest teenage birthrate with 62 teenagers per every thousand. That’s a lot of babies and something had to be done to teach students about the consequences of their decisions.

    “You get a good experience on what a real child would be like,” sophomore Erin Campbell said.

    Although this lesson shows many aspects of parenthood students realize the real thing is much more trying.

    “Taking care of a doll still doesn’t show you all of the realities of having a real baby and you must prepare more than you think,” junior April Rodriquez said. “I think it’s beneficial because it shows how much someone needs to sacrifice to support a baby.”

    One of the main messages the baby project tries to convey is that while babies may be adorable it is not a walk in the park to care for another human being.

    Some students even decided to brave the outside world with their baby rather than stay home all weekend. Most students didn’t get a very positive reaction from strangers.

    “They looked at me in shock because of the baby,” junior Crystal Lopez said.

    Other students felt even more hostility when carrying their baby in public.

    “My weekend was difficult not because I had to take care of the baby, but because of all the harsh comments I got from others,” sophomore Samantha Burnes said.

    The reactions weren’t the only negative aspects of the project. Many students complained about the nightly lack of sleep.

    “I didn’t get any sleep at all,” Rodriquez said. “I gave it everything I thought it needed, but it still cried.”

    Like a normal baby these dolls seem to have impeccable timing.

    “Every time I fell asleep it cried again,” Burnes said.

    But did the message sink in for the teens of BHS? Do students know the responsibility that comes with having a child in high school?  Not just the cost but the emotional problems as well.

    “It is still my dream to have children, but I learned that it will take a lot more preparation for me before I take care of my own child,” senior Alex Newman said.

    Some people may think that just a weekend with a baby is not enough time to teach students a lesson about parenting.

    “It’d be a good thing [to keep the baby longer], but the kids wouldn’t be able to survive,” Huvar said.