Technically still a result
August 27, 2016 4:53 PM Subscribe
"Babies" made from flour sacks or eggshells have been used for to teach children about the responsibilities of parenthood, but a new study using lifelike simulated babies in Western Australian schools had a surprising result: girls enrolled in the Virtual Infant Parenting Program (VIP) were twice as likely to give birth in their teens.
[original report in The Lancet]
[original report in The Lancet]
Huh. There's speculation as to why these results happened, but I wish we had a bigger dataset, because I'd like to know if that failure rate is true across the board.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 5:03 PM on August 27, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 5:03 PM on August 27, 2016 [7 favorites]
The study authors conceded that the control cohort tended to have higher education and higher socio-economic status, but after adjusting for these factors they found no difference in their findings.
I'm curious, what does that mean? How would they adjust for those factors? I'm not being snarky--it's a genuine question. I never had to take a quantitative research methods course and this is stuff I'd like to know more about.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 5:04 PM on August 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'm curious, what does that mean? How would they adjust for those factors? I'm not being snarky--it's a genuine question. I never had to take a quantitative research methods course and this is stuff I'd like to know more about.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 5:04 PM on August 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
Those babies were clearly too cute. Did any of them shoot fantails of poo out the backs of their diapers? Did any of them simulate your partner picking a fight with you at 4:30 in the morning after a terrible night of sleep? Do any of them sandpaper your nipples off?
Yep. Too cute.
posted by amanda at 5:05 PM on August 27, 2016 [88 favorites]
Yep. Too cute.
posted by amanda at 5:05 PM on August 27, 2016 [88 favorites]
Girls who were given the baby bots were also more likely to have an abortion (9 per cent)
They must not have enjoyed it THAT much...
Is it possible that these programs are more likely to be used in areas/schools that already have a higher rate of teen pregnancy? Or that girls considered at higher risk of teen pregnancy are more likely to be enrolled in the program?
I guess it could be that the robot isn't all that difficult really, and some of them go "oh, yeah, I can totally handle this."
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 5:05 PM on August 27, 2016 [5 favorites]
They must not have enjoyed it THAT much...
Is it possible that these programs are more likely to be used in areas/schools that already have a higher rate of teen pregnancy? Or that girls considered at higher risk of teen pregnancy are more likely to be enrolled in the program?
I guess it could be that the robot isn't all that difficult really, and some of them go "oh, yeah, I can totally handle this."
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 5:05 PM on August 27, 2016 [5 favorites]
This American Life had a segment about robot babies where (spoiler alert!) one of the teenagers turned out to have a better opinion of pregnancy and childrearing after her experience. Turns out the producer of that segment wrote about the Lancet study two days ago.
It's a really lovely segment, by the way. Worth listening to.
posted by chrominance at 5:06 PM on August 27, 2016 [10 favorites]
It's a really lovely segment, by the way. Worth listening to.
posted by chrominance at 5:06 PM on August 27, 2016 [10 favorites]
Fom the abstract: After adjustment for potential confounders, the intervention group had a higher overall pregnancy risk than the control group (relative risk 1·36 [95% CI 1·10–1·67], p=0·003).
So the quote from the article "twice as likely to give birth in their teens than girls who had no intervention (8 per cent versus 4 per cent)" is BS - that's the unadjusted figure. Given the pretty large difference after adjusting for confounding factors, I wonder if perhaps the confounding factors may not have been totally accounted for, though I don't have access to the actual paper.
This is also BS: The study authors conceded that the control cohort tended to have higher education and higher socio-economic status, but after adjusting for these factors they found no difference in their findings.
They actually found a huge difference after adjusting for those factors!
posted by ssg at 5:07 PM on August 27, 2016 [9 favorites]
So the quote from the article "twice as likely to give birth in their teens than girls who had no intervention (8 per cent versus 4 per cent)" is BS - that's the unadjusted figure. Given the pretty large difference after adjusting for confounding factors, I wonder if perhaps the confounding factors may not have been totally accounted for, though I don't have access to the actual paper.
This is also BS: The study authors conceded that the control cohort tended to have higher education and higher socio-economic status, but after adjusting for these factors they found no difference in their findings.
They actually found a huge difference after adjusting for those factors!
posted by ssg at 5:07 PM on August 27, 2016 [9 favorites]
Wait, members of a mammalian species are exhibiting a desire to procreate after puberty when exposed to a lifelike simulation of such? Shocking.
posted by anarch at 5:14 PM on August 27, 2016 [54 favorites]
posted by anarch at 5:14 PM on August 27, 2016 [54 favorites]
The babies cry when they need to be fed, burped, rocked, or changed, but it doesn't say if they ever cry inconsolably just because it's 8 and that's What We Do at 8. If you think you're getting a creature whose needs you can meet and then they'll be happy and quiet, I can see that lead you to think having a baby is something it isn't.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:22 PM on August 27, 2016 [95 favorites]
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:22 PM on August 27, 2016 [95 favorites]
This sounds like an opportunity to exploit the uncanny valley for good.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:22 PM on August 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:22 PM on August 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
Haven't there also been studies showing that teens who's friends had a baby were more likely to get pregnant etc? It seems that leaving those maternal feelings as dormant as possible might be better.
posted by fshgrl at 5:29 PM on August 27, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by fshgrl at 5:29 PM on August 27, 2016 [14 favorites]
Idle internet speculation: The unknown is terrifying. If you know exactly how bad it will be caring for a baby, it's going to seem less worrisome if you end up pregnant than if it's some unknown and fearsome thing.
posted by Zalzidrax at 5:38 PM on August 27, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by Zalzidrax at 5:38 PM on August 27, 2016 [9 favorites]
On the flipside, I was basically traumatized by one of these at age 12. I'd had absolutely no intention of having kids ever before the experience, which might have made me more vulnerable to the idea that having a baby would be easier than I thought if things had gone well. I wound up having the demon robot for five days due to an ice storm and catching a bad cold. On night 5, my mom walked into my room while the machine and I were both crying on the floor at 4 A.M. and insisted on cutting the key off my wrist and taking it back to school for me. I did not get credit for the assignment because my wristband was removed.
I've always figured that if it bothered me so much without having to deal with any bodily fluids, I am probably not cut out to be a mother, but I can definitely see where a teenage girl could conclude that she could handle it based on parenting the nightmare doll.
posted by lemonadeheretic at 6:04 PM on August 27, 2016 [22 favorites]
I've always figured that if it bothered me so much without having to deal with any bodily fluids, I am probably not cut out to be a mother, but I can definitely see where a teenage girl could conclude that she could handle it based on parenting the nightmare doll.
posted by lemonadeheretic at 6:04 PM on August 27, 2016 [22 favorites]
MeFi Mod Team: parenting the nightmare doll
posted by hippybear at 6:10 PM on August 27, 2016 [49 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 6:10 PM on August 27, 2016 [49 favorites]
Infants, haha. Try getting a toddler doll into the car in time to make it to school.
posted by cestmoi15 at 6:12 PM on August 27, 2016 [24 favorites]
posted by cestmoi15 at 6:12 PM on August 27, 2016 [24 favorites]
My ex is a midwife who at one point was working with some pretty deprived, difficult households. She would take our 7 year old daughter along on some visits. On the way home she would say ".... and that's what happens if you get pregnant as a teenager."
(Seems to have worked as a contraceptive incentive so far).
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:45 PM on August 27, 2016 [12 favorites]
(Seems to have worked as a contraceptive incentive so far).
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:45 PM on August 27, 2016 [12 favorites]
As someone planning to help teach a sex-ed course in the spring, this is giving me Many Thoughts. Have a sample!
1. Babies are appealing to lots of people, even when they keep you from sleeping. And in this case you know it's for a limited time so it seems easier. In real life, the thing that crushes your spirit at the third waking of the night is not the event itself, it's realizing you have to get through several more months of this, if you're lucky, before you get another full night's sleep. This experiment doesn't replicate that.
2. Is using a robot baby as temporary simulated punishment all that different from using the threat of a real baby as punishment for sex? That's what most anti-abortion types seem to believe. It doesn't work well on the teen pregnancy rate either.
3. The article says "Girls enrolled in the VIP program also attend education sessions delivered by nurses that cover pregnancy, good nutrition, the financial costs of having a baby, sexual health, contraception and respectful relationships. They also watch a documentary featuring teenage mothers talking about their experiences." I would be interested to know more details about the course content. Do they get a week, several months, what?
4. There's been a lot of pushback lately in younger feminist circles about shaming teen mothers. Maybe some teens are thinking, well, I'm young and I can get this out of the way sooner if I do it now than in my 30s. Depending on their circumstances, this might or might not make a lot of sense. It would seem like a good idea to talk to the girls in question and just ask them what they were thinking, how they see their lives going forward.
posted by emjaybee at 6:46 PM on August 27, 2016 [28 favorites]
1. Babies are appealing to lots of people, even when they keep you from sleeping. And in this case you know it's for a limited time so it seems easier. In real life, the thing that crushes your spirit at the third waking of the night is not the event itself, it's realizing you have to get through several more months of this, if you're lucky, before you get another full night's sleep. This experiment doesn't replicate that.
2. Is using a robot baby as temporary simulated punishment all that different from using the threat of a real baby as punishment for sex? That's what most anti-abortion types seem to believe. It doesn't work well on the teen pregnancy rate either.
3. The article says "Girls enrolled in the VIP program also attend education sessions delivered by nurses that cover pregnancy, good nutrition, the financial costs of having a baby, sexual health, contraception and respectful relationships. They also watch a documentary featuring teenage mothers talking about their experiences." I would be interested to know more details about the course content. Do they get a week, several months, what?
4. There's been a lot of pushback lately in younger feminist circles about shaming teen mothers. Maybe some teens are thinking, well, I'm young and I can get this out of the way sooner if I do it now than in my 30s. Depending on their circumstances, this might or might not make a lot of sense. It would seem like a good idea to talk to the girls in question and just ask them what they were thinking, how they see their lives going forward.
posted by emjaybee at 6:46 PM on August 27, 2016 [28 favorites]
Yeah....no. I see what they are saying about simulation, but really, it *isn't* like having a kid. There aren't incidents of fever, or rashes or vomit, requiring you do take off work for doctor's visits, or the challenges of not being able to afford the additional expense. There isn't the pain of birth, of the numbness of the c-section, or the nipple soreness. I remember when we did that experiment in school, we had something like one person watching eight 'kids', to free up time. What we didn't have is the scenario of being exhausted and having several people on public transportation giving 'friendly advice'.
The images have scenarios of participants holding two babies with one arm. If you look at the video, you've got two people speaking to the camera while holding 'babies'. Non-squirming, non-squealing babies. I imagine that while their simulations do include being woken up at 4:30, none of their simulations have variations that include a baby waking up at 11:30 and just deciding not to go to sleep again.
I understand that there is only so much that one can do, but I remember thinking at the time I did the exercise that kids would be great. And they are, but seriously, if my baby wasn't an acne faced, bad smelling squirmer, but a cute doll where the only things I was worried about was burping, feeding from a bottle (what, no breast is best admonitions?, No forgot to refrigerate the milk so it spoiled? No criticism about breast feeding in public?) and making sure that I picked him up, *and* I was surrounded by colleagues all going through the same thing, rather than colleagues who I hope don't get mad because I have to leave a 5pm to get to my day care by 6pm, because they charge $1 a minute after 6, so I'm praying that public transportation doesn't get delayed by some medical emergency....well, I'd think kids were an okay deal as well.
In short, having an RealBaby simulator gives you some of the baby experience, little to none of the the physical discomfort and absolutely none of the societal barriers to having a baby. Not that the idea that having a baby is hard should be the focus, and learning to care for a baby is fantastic.
But there was little in that exercise that I participated in as a kid that taught me what being a parent was about of what you had to face. Ask the kids who did the exercise and became pregnant if they think it was comparable. Now that would be interesting.
posted by anitanita at 6:49 PM on August 27, 2016 [17 favorites]
The images have scenarios of participants holding two babies with one arm. If you look at the video, you've got two people speaking to the camera while holding 'babies'. Non-squirming, non-squealing babies. I imagine that while their simulations do include being woken up at 4:30, none of their simulations have variations that include a baby waking up at 11:30 and just deciding not to go to sleep again.
I understand that there is only so much that one can do, but I remember thinking at the time I did the exercise that kids would be great. And they are, but seriously, if my baby wasn't an acne faced, bad smelling squirmer, but a cute doll where the only things I was worried about was burping, feeding from a bottle (what, no breast is best admonitions?, No forgot to refrigerate the milk so it spoiled? No criticism about breast feeding in public?) and making sure that I picked him up, *and* I was surrounded by colleagues all going through the same thing, rather than colleagues who I hope don't get mad because I have to leave a 5pm to get to my day care by 6pm, because they charge $1 a minute after 6, so I'm praying that public transportation doesn't get delayed by some medical emergency....well, I'd think kids were an okay deal as well.
In short, having an RealBaby simulator gives you some of the baby experience, little to none of the the physical discomfort and absolutely none of the societal barriers to having a baby. Not that the idea that having a baby is hard should be the focus, and learning to care for a baby is fantastic.
But there was little in that exercise that I participated in as a kid that taught me what being a parent was about of what you had to face. Ask the kids who did the exercise and became pregnant if they think it was comparable. Now that would be interesting.
posted by anitanita at 6:49 PM on August 27, 2016 [17 favorites]
cestmoi15: "Infants, haha. Try getting a toddler doll into the car in time to make it to school."
Or pick up the toddler doll from daycare before it hits 6 PM and they start charging you late fees by the second.
posted by octothorpe at 6:57 PM on August 27, 2016 [10 favorites]
Or pick up the toddler doll from daycare before it hits 6 PM and they start charging you late fees by the second.
posted by octothorpe at 6:57 PM on August 27, 2016 [10 favorites]
Glad to see that the 'you know nothing of LIFE, Little Girl' approach to teenage pregnancy has been shown to fail. What a dystopic initiative.
posted by tavegyl at 7:01 PM on August 27, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by tavegyl at 7:01 PM on August 27, 2016 [7 favorites]
it doesn't say if they ever cry inconsolably just because it's 8 and that's What We Do at 8
Some of them - ya. I did this in highschool and they're each programmed with a different "temperament" so to speak when they're handed out. At least the ones I did. The number 5 program was the worst - they called it the nightmare baby. One of my classmates got that one. It would cry inconsolably for long stretches of time. She was frazzled by the end of the 4 day weekend.
Did any of them simulate your partner picking a fight with you at 4:30 in the morning after a terrible night of sleep?
They don't simulate a fight - but they do make you sleep deprived. They wake you up screaming and you do have to get up and do whatever they need done.
Now - I also think that the way this study is being promoted is misleading. But I also have to say that the robot babies do a decent job of simulating a real baby. It's better than a flour sack for sure. They scream and gosh - don't even get me started on the hair trigger in the neck mechanism. If you don't fully support the neck it starts screaming and screaming and it's so darn touchy. (Obviously you need to be careful with babies too but this things on a hair trigger.) Also the damn speaker is in the chest so when you wake up at 3am to rock it the speaker is shooting sound onto your shoulder and reverberating it directly in your ear. The mechanical crying is so scratchy - and yes I've been around real baby screams.
Is it exactly like a real baby? Not at all. But it does suck bigtime. I don't think it's fair to say it's easy or fun. Just listen to the This American Life linked before. It's not a cute cooing adorable baby that giggles all the time.
I do agree with the issues of causation here. In my school, the class that had these was optional. It was "Home Life" similar to Home Ec. Mostly women took it (there were no men in my class.) And it discussed issues surrounding raising a household and children. It was an interesting and fun course and I loved the teacher (who also taught sewing which I took 2 years of.)
Now, it's recommended in my school that the pregnant girls take the class. So during my semester 2 of the 20 or so girls were already pregnant. So I think having an interest in having children or already being pregnant meant that the class was more meaningful to those girls or people.
That said - I HATED the robot baby. I took the class because it was fun but some people took the class for the robot baby. It wasn't done as a way of birth control. It didn't really change my mind about babies - in fact I didn't realize till a few years later that I didn't want them at all. But it sucked. And I hated it. And my dad reports me fulling breaking down and crying during the whole thing though it's all a blur for me.
That said, I'm firmly in the no babies camp. I don't think the robot baby had anything really to do with it because I find the idea of real babies worse. Perhaps the program could be expanded with more real-life examples in addition to the robot babies. But I took birth control just as seriously before and after and it didn't really change my opinion on it.
I did end up only getting like an 80-some percent on my baby-rearing. I think the diaper was defective because it registered as no-diaper way more than it should have.
Really though, proper sex education and access to birth control is where it's at.
posted by Crystalinne at 7:28 PM on August 27, 2016 [13 favorites]
Some of them - ya. I did this in highschool and they're each programmed with a different "temperament" so to speak when they're handed out. At least the ones I did. The number 5 program was the worst - they called it the nightmare baby. One of my classmates got that one. It would cry inconsolably for long stretches of time. She was frazzled by the end of the 4 day weekend.
Did any of them simulate your partner picking a fight with you at 4:30 in the morning after a terrible night of sleep?
They don't simulate a fight - but they do make you sleep deprived. They wake you up screaming and you do have to get up and do whatever they need done.
Now - I also think that the way this study is being promoted is misleading. But I also have to say that the robot babies do a decent job of simulating a real baby. It's better than a flour sack for sure. They scream and gosh - don't even get me started on the hair trigger in the neck mechanism. If you don't fully support the neck it starts screaming and screaming and it's so darn touchy. (Obviously you need to be careful with babies too but this things on a hair trigger.) Also the damn speaker is in the chest so when you wake up at 3am to rock it the speaker is shooting sound onto your shoulder and reverberating it directly in your ear. The mechanical crying is so scratchy - and yes I've been around real baby screams.
Is it exactly like a real baby? Not at all. But it does suck bigtime. I don't think it's fair to say it's easy or fun. Just listen to the This American Life linked before. It's not a cute cooing adorable baby that giggles all the time.
I do agree with the issues of causation here. In my school, the class that had these was optional. It was "Home Life" similar to Home Ec. Mostly women took it (there were no men in my class.) And it discussed issues surrounding raising a household and children. It was an interesting and fun course and I loved the teacher (who also taught sewing which I took 2 years of.)
Now, it's recommended in my school that the pregnant girls take the class. So during my semester 2 of the 20 or so girls were already pregnant. So I think having an interest in having children or already being pregnant meant that the class was more meaningful to those girls or people.
That said - I HATED the robot baby. I took the class because it was fun but some people took the class for the robot baby. It wasn't done as a way of birth control. It didn't really change my mind about babies - in fact I didn't realize till a few years later that I didn't want them at all. But it sucked. And I hated it. And my dad reports me fulling breaking down and crying during the whole thing though it's all a blur for me.
That said, I'm firmly in the no babies camp. I don't think the robot baby had anything really to do with it because I find the idea of real babies worse. Perhaps the program could be expanded with more real-life examples in addition to the robot babies. But I took birth control just as seriously before and after and it didn't really change my opinion on it.
I did end up only getting like an 80-some percent on my baby-rearing. I think the diaper was defective because it registered as no-diaper way more than it should have.
Really though, proper sex education and access to birth control is where it's at.
posted by Crystalinne at 7:28 PM on August 27, 2016 [13 favorites]
Did they give any of them to boys?
posted by toodleydoodley at 7:37 PM on August 27, 2016 [30 favorites]
posted by toodleydoodley at 7:37 PM on August 27, 2016 [30 favorites]
As Crystalline points out, I wonder about the selection process for who got the babies. I'm also interested in the "official" curriculum for the robo-babies, since the company representative in the article said that non-adherence to the protocol was the issue.
posted by lazuli at 7:43 PM on August 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by lazuli at 7:43 PM on August 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
I would like to give the teens in the study some credit - they experienced a robo baby and realized they could do it! They could raise a baby and be pretty decent at it. And the study primed everyone in their world to both having a (robo) baby around and to the teens abilities. In some ways it was an ideal situation to then have a real baby.
I have worked with teen moms and some of them are amazing and awesome and the best moms someone could hope for (yes, they don't have all the resources of a 35+ year old but they have different resources - like tons of energy, an interest in doing a good job without the perfectionism that seems to appear in the mid 20s, and sometimes a good family structure, and other personal awesome sauce human resources (because teens are people and some of them are just good at certain things)).
Both times I was pregnant, my partner had business that took him away for long periods of time, and I kept thinking, "Oh, I wish I was in high school. Then I would get to see all my friends all the time, and my mother would buy food and cook for me, and maybe if I asked nicely do the laundry, and my life was more inter-generational as being with kids is normal when you are in high school but is hard to do in the US when you are in your 20s, and money and perfection had a different hue."
Supporting teens having kids they want to have, even when you would not make that choice, is what being pro-choice is all about. And if that education includes receiving comprehensive accurate sex ed and access to birth control, then I am in!
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 8:01 PM on August 27, 2016 [45 favorites]
I have worked with teen moms and some of them are amazing and awesome and the best moms someone could hope for (yes, they don't have all the resources of a 35+ year old but they have different resources - like tons of energy, an interest in doing a good job without the perfectionism that seems to appear in the mid 20s, and sometimes a good family structure, and other personal awesome sauce human resources (because teens are people and some of them are just good at certain things)).
Both times I was pregnant, my partner had business that took him away for long periods of time, and I kept thinking, "Oh, I wish I was in high school. Then I would get to see all my friends all the time, and my mother would buy food and cook for me, and maybe if I asked nicely do the laundry, and my life was more inter-generational as being with kids is normal when you are in high school but is hard to do in the US when you are in your 20s, and money and perfection had a different hue."
Supporting teens having kids they want to have, even when you would not make that choice, is what being pro-choice is all about. And if that education includes receiving comprehensive accurate sex ed and access to birth control, then I am in!
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 8:01 PM on August 27, 2016 [45 favorites]
It honestly never occurred to me that fake babies for teens thing was intended to deter pregnancy. I always thought that the point was to *encourage* people to have families young. (Because people like families. My mother is always on my case about it.)
How is it not evident that if you train people to do something, they are more likely to do the thing? Armies put their soldiers through combat training, and I'm pretty sure the intent isn't to get everyone to go "oh, war sucks, lets all go pick flowers." Math teachers spend years teaching a widely reviled subject, and I am pretty sure no math teacher is going "I hope they never use it."
posted by surlyben at 8:17 PM on August 27, 2016 [23 favorites]
How is it not evident that if you train people to do something, they are more likely to do the thing? Armies put their soldiers through combat training, and I'm pretty sure the intent isn't to get everyone to go "oh, war sucks, lets all go pick flowers." Math teachers spend years teaching a widely reviled subject, and I am pretty sure no math teacher is going "I hope they never use it."
posted by surlyben at 8:17 PM on August 27, 2016 [23 favorites]
I'm pretty sure the intent isn't to get everyone to go "oh, war sucks, lets all go pick flowers."
From your lips to God's ears.
posted by hippybear at 8:19 PM on August 27, 2016 [13 favorites]
From your lips to God's ears.
posted by hippybear at 8:19 PM on August 27, 2016 [13 favorites]
The number 5 program was the worst - they called it the nightmare baby. One of my classmates got that one. It would cry inconsolably for long stretches of time. She was frazzled by the end of the 4 day weekend.
Why wouldn't you give everyone the nightmare baby, if fear was the point?
It feels like the best way to run the class would be to give everyone the worst baby imaginable, and then somehow rig the class to make it feel like everyone else was doing great but they were doing terribly. Also, do it during the busiest time of the year. Just a bit evil, though.
posted by Mitrovarr at 8:24 PM on August 27, 2016 [11 favorites]
Why wouldn't you give everyone the nightmare baby, if fear was the point?
It feels like the best way to run the class would be to give everyone the worst baby imaginable, and then somehow rig the class to make it feel like everyone else was doing great but they were doing terribly. Also, do it during the busiest time of the year. Just a bit evil, though.
posted by Mitrovarr at 8:24 PM on August 27, 2016 [11 favorites]
I assume they convince the parents of the teens to sign off on this somehow?
Because if my child brought home an electronic device that started screeching at 95db at 3 in the morning, it would quickly find itself in the trunk of the car in driveway or dropped off on the doorstep of the school.
Went through that with real kids, not going to do it with a robo-baby.
Disclaimer: Did not actually put real baby in car trunk.
posted by madajb at 8:24 PM on August 27, 2016 [20 favorites]
Because if my child brought home an electronic device that started screeching at 95db at 3 in the morning, it would quickly find itself in the trunk of the car in driveway or dropped off on the doorstep of the school.
Went through that with real kids, not going to do it with a robo-baby.
Disclaimer: Did not actually put real baby in car trunk.
posted by madajb at 8:24 PM on August 27, 2016 [20 favorites]
If you think you're getting a creature whose needs you can meet and then they'll be happy and quiet, I can see that lead you to think having a baby is something it isn't.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 20:22 on August 27 [+] [!]
Sounds like the new baby is settling in just fine, eh?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:34 PM on August 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 20:22 on August 27 [+] [!]
Sounds like the new baby is settling in just fine, eh?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:34 PM on August 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
Disclaimer: Did not actually put real baby in car trunk.
But how many of them ended up on school steps? Inquiring minds want to know.
posted by hippybear at 8:39 PM on August 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
But how many of them ended up on school steps? Inquiring minds want to know.
posted by hippybear at 8:39 PM on August 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
If you think you're getting a creature whose needs you can meet and then they'll be happy and quiet, I can see that lead you to think having a baby is something it isn't.
I think it was the very first episode of thirtysomething which involved Hope being distraught because the baby was crying for reasons she couldn't figure out, which was the first time I ever saw that on television depicted in a real way, and I sort of went "whoa, this series is going to be different".
posted by hippybear at 8:41 PM on August 27, 2016 [5 favorites]
I think it was the very first episode of thirtysomething which involved Hope being distraught because the baby was crying for reasons she couldn't figure out, which was the first time I ever saw that on television depicted in a real way, and I sort of went "whoa, this series is going to be different".
posted by hippybear at 8:41 PM on August 27, 2016 [5 favorites]
Non breeders really just have no idea how fucking hard parenting is. Not even close. It makes the contempt and lack of empathy a lot of them seem to feel for parents really, really frustrating and crazymaking. That said, until recently, when I stopped having enough support in my life to do it as well as I'd like, there's never been any job I've personally found more meaningful and deeply satisfying. My personal history plays a huge role in why that is, so don't anybody go getting butt hurt over my saying that, but yeah. Babies are a massive pain for all the other things they may be...
posted by saulgoodman at 8:54 PM on August 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 8:54 PM on August 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
We had the flour sack babies in 7th grade. One of them got destroyed by standard horseplay and we ended up having a trial. A "you murdered your baby" thing in which all of us had to testify and all of us were uncomfortable trying to both downplay the flour spillage and keep our reputations alive for the next several weeks as every bit of us was torn apart and got scrutinized to an unhealthy for 12 year olds degree. Pretty abusively. The same teacher that yelled at me when my brother (who, yes, is an asshole, but not for this) stopped dating her daughter in middle school and I received poor grades for months. I tried my best to play Sonic during it all but I'm somewhat responsible for the baby's death as far as I understand.
I went to a weird school... I try to explain it over and over but... it was just really weird.
posted by downtohisturtles at 8:56 PM on August 27, 2016 [22 favorites]
I went to a weird school... I try to explain it over and over but... it was just really weird.
posted by downtohisturtles at 8:56 PM on August 27, 2016 [22 favorites]
I had a pregnancy scare in high school, so I asked my home ec teacher to borrow a robo-baby, even though I wasn't in her class. It was awful, and I gave it back as soon as I found out I wasn't pregnant, but I think it did help when I had my kid five years later.
posted by Ruki at 8:59 PM on August 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Ruki at 8:59 PM on August 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
saulgoodman: Non breeders really just have no idea how fucking hard parenting is. Not even close.
I dunno, I think it is. I mean I see people with kids in situations I view as hopeless who don't descend into abject poverty all the time. Hell, I see people with situations I view as hopeless for themselves alone who manage to somehow pull through with kids.
Frankly if it was as hard to parent as I view it the human race would die out within one generation.
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:23 PM on August 27, 2016 [14 favorites]
I dunno, I think it is. I mean I see people with kids in situations I view as hopeless who don't descend into abject poverty all the time. Hell, I see people with situations I view as hopeless for themselves alone who manage to somehow pull through with kids.
Frankly if it was as hard to parent as I view it the human race would die out within one generation.
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:23 PM on August 27, 2016 [14 favorites]
But how many of them ended up on school steps? Inquiring minds want to know.
Just one, but they send her back at 2:15 every afternoon.
posted by madajb at 9:39 PM on August 27, 2016 [11 favorites]
Just one, but they send her back at 2:15 every afternoon.
posted by madajb at 9:39 PM on August 27, 2016 [11 favorites]
If they really wanted to discourage early motherhood, they should simulate pregnancy, not the babies themselves. Just give all girls ages 13-15 a drug that makes them throw up for an hour every morning for two weeks. BOOM.
posted by daisystomper at 9:39 PM on August 27, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by daisystomper at 9:39 PM on August 27, 2016 [11 favorites]
The thing is, a lot of parents who have given birth to actual babies that of course find ways to do things that are ten time more horrible than anything a robo-baby could come up with, like pee and puke and shit all over the place, and are willing to go right back to that same rodeo after a year or two. And while not all parents feel this way, I suspect the majority of them do not regret having a baby, as hard as it may be. It shouldn't be surprising that teen girls may not be wired that differently from adult women and might find the experience of taking care of a very demanding dependent creature to actually have rewards that outweigh the costs?
It's really such a bizarre strategy when you start picking it apart. This is the same age at which we start to tell kids that the things worth having in life require a lot of effort and sacrifice, that hard work is noble, that life isn't all fun and games, and that the higher your aspirations the harder you have to work to achieve them. Then to have this one thing where it seems like the strategy is to make girls think "gee, this is hard work, better steer clear of that!"
posted by drlith at 9:43 PM on August 27, 2016 [33 favorites]
It's really such a bizarre strategy when you start picking it apart. This is the same age at which we start to tell kids that the things worth having in life require a lot of effort and sacrifice, that hard work is noble, that life isn't all fun and games, and that the higher your aspirations the harder you have to work to achieve them. Then to have this one thing where it seems like the strategy is to make girls think "gee, this is hard work, better steer clear of that!"
posted by drlith at 9:43 PM on August 27, 2016 [33 favorites]
I wish we could devote more resources to supporting young parents and helping them do as much schooling or working as they want. It's ridiculous that women earn more for each year they put off having kids (and presumably more if they don't have kids too). Why push people to have kids at precisely 35 instead of helping people figure it out whatever age they are? Why work so hard to convince people not to have the kids they want?
posted by Margalo Epps at 9:57 PM on August 27, 2016 [16 favorites]
posted by Margalo Epps at 9:57 PM on August 27, 2016 [16 favorites]
Did they give any of them to boys?
Yes, but they only experienced a modest increase in birth rate
posted by clockzero at 10:07 PM on August 27, 2016 [4 favorites]
Yes, but they only experienced a modest increase in birth rate
posted by clockzero at 10:07 PM on August 27, 2016 [4 favorites]
Just came home from the play Mom's the word all about the experience of mothering young children... this is a fun corollary.
posted by chapps at 10:25 PM on August 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by chapps at 10:25 PM on August 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
How many of these teenage mothers, upon interview, actually said, "yeah, the robo baby made me want a real baby, my maternal instincts were fully activated, I went out and had unprotected sex cause babies are so easy and cute"? It's just as plausible that the sleep deprivation from robobaby caused them to forget/misuse contraception.
posted by benzenedream at 11:23 PM on August 27, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 11:23 PM on August 27, 2016 [7 favorites]
"It honestly never occurred to me that fake babies for teens thing was intended to deter pregnancy. I always thought that the point was to *encourage* people to have families young."
Me, too, on the first part but not the second -- I just assumed it was getting kids to think about those responsibilities, in preparation for if and when they take them on, neither pro or anti. It doesn't teach you what it's like to be an actual parent, but it teaches you a few things and gives some sense of it -- just like basically everythings else you're taught in high school.
As a discouragement to teen pregnancy, this seems stupid and deeply inadequate to me. I wouldn't find it at all surprising if it's genuinely counter-productive, as this study suggests.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:39 PM on August 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
Me, too, on the first part but not the second -- I just assumed it was getting kids to think about those responsibilities, in preparation for if and when they take them on, neither pro or anti. It doesn't teach you what it's like to be an actual parent, but it teaches you a few things and gives some sense of it -- just like basically everythings else you're taught in high school.
As a discouragement to teen pregnancy, this seems stupid and deeply inadequate to me. I wouldn't find it at all surprising if it's genuinely counter-productive, as this study suggests.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:39 PM on August 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
Why wouldn't you give everyone the nightmare baby, if fear was the point?
Well, I can't speak for how the study was done in this case and how those babies were programmed. However in our case, the class was optional like sewing, home ec, shop, art, etc. It was "family life" where it discussed relationships, home care, we did a faux wedding plan, talked about goals and dreams for careers and futures, practical household stuff. It was a pretty fluff class - hence why I took it. So for us it wasn't about fear it was about learning responsibilities of a household and possibly opening eyes to what goes into childcare.
As I stated, I don't think a robo baby should be used as birth control or a deterrent. It's more about learning. And some people learn that they like the idea of it.
posted by Crystalinne at 12:14 AM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well, I can't speak for how the study was done in this case and how those babies were programmed. However in our case, the class was optional like sewing, home ec, shop, art, etc. It was "family life" where it discussed relationships, home care, we did a faux wedding plan, talked about goals and dreams for careers and futures, practical household stuff. It was a pretty fluff class - hence why I took it. So for us it wasn't about fear it was about learning responsibilities of a household and possibly opening eyes to what goes into childcare.
As I stated, I don't think a robo baby should be used as birth control or a deterrent. It's more about learning. And some people learn that they like the idea of it.
posted by Crystalinne at 12:14 AM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hm. Don't have the full article right now but the study protocol does make a point of highlighting the limitations - in particular, randomisation occurred at the school level and students were aware of which group they were in before agreeing to participate. Heterogenous attrition becomes a genuine problem here - my guess is that if you really, really want kids then you're way more likely to agree to join the intervention group, but not so much if you're in the control group (and there are differences in participation rates between groups, so there is at least some evidence of differential attrition). The analysis seems sensible but adjusting for confounding variables is always a tricky business, especially when you can't measure all the things you care about and you suspect that you have a data-missing-not-at-random problem. Not knowing anything about whether there were any baseline differences between groups in "desire to have kids" makes it difficult to know how much faith to put in the result. That said, it seems interesting though, and I'm very glad someone is actually evaluating these programs rather than just assuming they work.
posted by langtonsant at 12:16 AM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by langtonsant at 12:16 AM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
"Babies" made from flour sacks or eggshells have been used for to teach children about the responsibilities of parenthood
But how many went on to become bakers?
posted by pracowity at 12:35 AM on August 28, 2016 [10 favorites]
But how many went on to become bakers?
posted by pracowity at 12:35 AM on August 28, 2016 [10 favorites]
This doesn't strike me as all that confusing. Eggs and bags of flour are not especially difficult to take care of, so you have all these teenagers going, "Hey, that was easy! I can do that!"
It's not a particularly good simulation of child-rearing. They should really end the lesson with a certificate reading, "Congratulations! You are now qualified to handle groceries. By the way, if you think a baby is like an egg or a bag of flour, you are definitely not ready to be a parent."
posted by Sys Rq at 1:04 AM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
It's not a particularly good simulation of child-rearing. They should really end the lesson with a certificate reading, "Congratulations! You are now qualified to handle groceries. By the way, if you think a baby is like an egg or a bag of flour, you are definitely not ready to be a parent."
posted by Sys Rq at 1:04 AM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
I had an egg baby in high school. It died by falling off a table in the art room 2 hours into the week, so my entire journal was about the funeral and my mourning process for my little egg baby who died in that tragic accident. I think I got an A.
The thing I really won't forget, though, was the look I got when I asked my 6-months pregnant classmate why the hell she was putting up with this shit and carrying around this stupid egg. I can't even imagine all the other bullshit she was dealing with, on all sides (as an honors student in a Catholic school, especially). I still sometimes think of that moment and hope she's doing really well, because even looking back as an adult who has Been Through Some Shit, she seemed impossibly strong to me.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 1:12 AM on August 28, 2016 [12 favorites]
The thing I really won't forget, though, was the look I got when I asked my 6-months pregnant classmate why the hell she was putting up with this shit and carrying around this stupid egg. I can't even imagine all the other bullshit she was dealing with, on all sides (as an honors student in a Catholic school, especially). I still sometimes think of that moment and hope she's doing really well, because even looking back as an adult who has Been Through Some Shit, she seemed impossibly strong to me.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 1:12 AM on August 28, 2016 [12 favorites]
I also wonder if this result is tied to participation, eg parents who believe scaring their teens is a more effective form of birth control than, ya know, actual birth control.
posted by nat at 1:40 AM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by nat at 1:40 AM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
The thing I wonder about is what sort of data was used to inform the decision to implement these programs in the first place. Casually, it seems to me to be one of those things which are founded on the expectations of certain groups of folks about the way the world works (or perhaps the way they wish the world would work) rather than any firm empirically informed understanding of how the world actually works.
posted by The Correspondent on the Continent at 2:51 AM on August 28, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by The Correspondent on the Continent at 2:51 AM on August 28, 2016 [8 favorites]
But how many went on to become bakers?
Would have been worth it take the class just so I could turn the baby into cookies on the last day. Alas, my school did not hand out flour babies.
posted by ryanrs at 3:50 AM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
Would have been worth it take the class just so I could turn the baby into cookies on the last day. Alas, my school did not hand out flour babies.
posted by ryanrs at 3:50 AM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
The analysis seems sensible but adjusting for confounding variables is always a tricky business, especially when you can't measure all the things you care about and you suspect that you have a data-missing-not-at-random problem.
SHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How dare you violate the commonly held norm against talking about missing data!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:09 AM on August 28, 2016
SHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How dare you violate the commonly held norm against talking about missing data!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:09 AM on August 28, 2016
One interesting anecdote. I attended a very conservative Christian high school, and we had robot babies, too. (Ours had four little keys that you could slot into the thing to represent soothing, feeding, diaper change, etc.) But they did it for the boys as well as the girls.
(I think less because of them thinking that men needed to be involved in childcare or challenging gender roles and more because they thought it would work in the "scared straight" sense.)
posted by Scattercat at 4:28 AM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
(I think less because of them thinking that men needed to be involved in childcare or challenging gender roles and more because they thought it would work in the "scared straight" sense.)
posted by Scattercat at 4:28 AM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
You also know what creates teen parents? A culture that shames young people for unplanned pregnancies so makes them anxious about talking to their doctors and family. Oh, yeah. And a country that threatens to murder clinicians that provide terminations.
I dream of a day when every person who has ever experienced an unplanned pregnancy scare, or been the dna donor in an unplanned pregnancy scare, to stand the fnck up and say," That could have been me but for sheer dumb luck." A forty six year old obstetrician was in my mother's group. In one of Australia's most expensive and conservative suburbs. She'd been casually dating a guy she didn't particularly like and became pregnant. She had two teenagers already. Yet nobody judged her.
Teenagers are perhaps less likely to access terminations than older people. But I don't reckon they're getting ,or nearly getting, pregnant much less. But I wonder why are they not accessing terminations? I really reckon telling young people that babies ruin your life is bloody stupid. Clearly robo babies don't show that. But toddlers do. And peri-pubertal kids do. The only people that think sleepless nights and dirty nappies are a traumatic part of parenting are either not parents, or parents to newborns. That's the easy part.
Trauma comes from the terror that someone you adore is in danger and you're unable to help. Oh, and fncking Lego under your bare foot in the middle of the night. Shoulda given them Lego shoes, woulda been more effective than a hysterectomy.
posted by taff at 4:38 AM on August 28, 2016 [10 favorites]
I dream of a day when every person who has ever experienced an unplanned pregnancy scare, or been the dna donor in an unplanned pregnancy scare, to stand the fnck up and say," That could have been me but for sheer dumb luck." A forty six year old obstetrician was in my mother's group. In one of Australia's most expensive and conservative suburbs. She'd been casually dating a guy she didn't particularly like and became pregnant. She had two teenagers already. Yet nobody judged her.
Teenagers are perhaps less likely to access terminations than older people. But I don't reckon they're getting ,or nearly getting, pregnant much less. But I wonder why are they not accessing terminations? I really reckon telling young people that babies ruin your life is bloody stupid. Clearly robo babies don't show that. But toddlers do. And peri-pubertal kids do. The only people that think sleepless nights and dirty nappies are a traumatic part of parenting are either not parents, or parents to newborns. That's the easy part.
Trauma comes from the terror that someone you adore is in danger and you're unable to help. Oh, and fncking Lego under your bare foot in the middle of the night. Shoulda given them Lego shoes, woulda been more effective than a hysterectomy.
posted by taff at 4:38 AM on August 28, 2016 [10 favorites]
go right back to that same rodeo after a year or two
You know that thing where you only remember the high points of an experience, and mentally discount the boring, hard slog? I'm convinced this is exactly why.
posted by regularfry at 6:08 AM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
You know that thing where you only remember the high points of an experience, and mentally discount the boring, hard slog? I'm convinced this is exactly why.
posted by regularfry at 6:08 AM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
ctrl-F: Responsibility -- no results. Hmmm.
Human beings are emotionally ready for adulthood about five years before modern society is ready to let us out of a state of artificially maintained infanthood. The responsibility of caring for a baby might not be fun, but it might be fulfilling. I can easily see that it might seem a lesser horror than the ongoing meaningless tedium of school and teenage social rituals. After all, when you're caring for the baby society is acknowledging that you are capable of taking on a great difficult responsibility and expecting you to handle it. You are valuable and your life has meaning. That can be a hard feeling to come by for a lot of teenagers.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:24 AM on August 28, 2016 [14 favorites]
Human beings are emotionally ready for adulthood about five years before modern society is ready to let us out of a state of artificially maintained infanthood. The responsibility of caring for a baby might not be fun, but it might be fulfilling. I can easily see that it might seem a lesser horror than the ongoing meaningless tedium of school and teenage social rituals. After all, when you're caring for the baby society is acknowledging that you are capable of taking on a great difficult responsibility and expecting you to handle it. You are valuable and your life has meaning. That can be a hard feeling to come by for a lot of teenagers.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:24 AM on August 28, 2016 [14 favorites]
Babies in their first year are a cakewalk. During the "meat luggage" phase they are easily portable, simple to trap behind barriers, and oblivious to most adult behaviours taking place around them (profanity, copulation, war movies with really graphic bits). Yes, they do yell inappropriately and are very selfish and soil themselves with irregular frequency but the same could be said of my geriatric relatives.
Healthy babies without colic are hard work, especially when you are sleep deprived, but they're not the end all and be all of soul-crushing effort some people make out. It's struggle, but it's a struggle even the least of us have the power to rise to meet.
If you want to scare a teen out of unplanned pregnancy, you need a toddler robot. A grumpy toddler robot with a persistent itch, an ouchie on its finger, a molar coming in, a severe break in its routine, all of its favourite foods unavailable, constipated because the new toilet is weird, running away while screaming for the comfort of your presence, changing its mind, punching you in the genitals, throwing up something indistinguishable from adult chunder in both smell and quantity, poking themselves in the eye while breaking everything you own, calling emergency services because it enjoys pushing buttons, washing your telephone, sitting on the cat, demanding to be read the most insipid fiction conceivable, while farting.
Babies? Babies are for beginners.
posted by Construction Concern at 6:32 AM on August 28, 2016 [52 favorites]
Healthy babies without colic are hard work, especially when you are sleep deprived, but they're not the end all and be all of soul-crushing effort some people make out. It's struggle, but it's a struggle even the least of us have the power to rise to meet.
If you want to scare a teen out of unplanned pregnancy, you need a toddler robot. A grumpy toddler robot with a persistent itch, an ouchie on its finger, a molar coming in, a severe break in its routine, all of its favourite foods unavailable, constipated because the new toilet is weird, running away while screaming for the comfort of your presence, changing its mind, punching you in the genitals, throwing up something indistinguishable from adult chunder in both smell and quantity, poking themselves in the eye while breaking everything you own, calling emergency services because it enjoys pushing buttons, washing your telephone, sitting on the cat, demanding to be read the most insipid fiction conceivable, while farting.
Babies? Babies are for beginners.
posted by Construction Concern at 6:32 AM on August 28, 2016 [52 favorites]
Trauma comes from the terror that someone you adore is in danger and you're unable to help.
As evidenced by the fact that you're giving me effing flashbacks here.
Trauma is having just got home from not having left the ICU in 2 days and your husband texting you that the baby is suddenly tanking and he doesn't know what to do and you can't just race to back the hospital because there's another kid asleep upstairs.
But that's not something you can really train for, and though the example above is extreme, it's the sort of thing that happens over and over as you get used to life with fragile little people who are occasionally hell-bent on self destruction. Baby's first fever at 2.5 months. Do you take them for a spinal tap? How do you unblock that teeny sniffly nose? Because they can't breathe AND eat, what if they aren't getting enough food? Is that why they're crying? Baby's first croup: holy shit he can barely breathe and he can't even get a cry out. NOW WHAT? Baby's first time knocking out a tooth. Who do you even call for that? (spoiler: pediatric dentists have emergency lines, but try to be an established patient first.) Toddler's first time falling down the stairs. Are they crying loud enough? Are they walking funny? Baby's first allergic reaction: Face all puffed up - do we have benadryl in the house? Was that a wheeze? As you get each of these milestones under your belt, you get better at handling them, but there's a never ending supply of shit you haven't thought about how to deal with yet.
Parenthood - even the bog-normal, no special needs, no health concerns flavor - is full of heart-stopping moments and weeks and months. Add some special needs here and some health problems there, and it's pretty hard on your brain. But you can't really convey that in advance because no teen will ever form that kind of attachment to a robot baby (and frankly one would be quite worried if they did.)
posted by telepanda at 6:39 AM on August 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
As evidenced by the fact that you're giving me effing flashbacks here.
Trauma is having just got home from not having left the ICU in 2 days and your husband texting you that the baby is suddenly tanking and he doesn't know what to do and you can't just race to back the hospital because there's another kid asleep upstairs.
But that's not something you can really train for, and though the example above is extreme, it's the sort of thing that happens over and over as you get used to life with fragile little people who are occasionally hell-bent on self destruction. Baby's first fever at 2.5 months. Do you take them for a spinal tap? How do you unblock that teeny sniffly nose? Because they can't breathe AND eat, what if they aren't getting enough food? Is that why they're crying? Baby's first croup: holy shit he can barely breathe and he can't even get a cry out. NOW WHAT? Baby's first time knocking out a tooth. Who do you even call for that? (spoiler: pediatric dentists have emergency lines, but try to be an established patient first.) Toddler's first time falling down the stairs. Are they crying loud enough? Are they walking funny? Baby's first allergic reaction: Face all puffed up - do we have benadryl in the house? Was that a wheeze? As you get each of these milestones under your belt, you get better at handling them, but there's a never ending supply of shit you haven't thought about how to deal with yet.
Parenthood - even the bog-normal, no special needs, no health concerns flavor - is full of heart-stopping moments and weeks and months. Add some special needs here and some health problems there, and it's pretty hard on your brain. But you can't really convey that in advance because no teen will ever form that kind of attachment to a robot baby (and frankly one would be quite worried if they did.)
posted by telepanda at 6:39 AM on August 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
no teen will ever form that kind of attachment to a robot baby (and frankly one would be quite worried if they did.)
You just need Sony to design the robot.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:51 AM on August 28, 2016
You just need Sony to design the robot.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:51 AM on August 28, 2016
Ever hear of fertility dolls?
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:01 AM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:01 AM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
Oh hai. I am a person who took the flour baby parenting class senior year and pretty soon after got pregnant accidentally on purpose. That pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, thank jeebus, because it was a totally terrible idea obv, but I'll share the thought process that led me there.
First, yeah, the class makes it seem, if not easy, at least doable. Before the class, babies were this mythical thing which you didn't even want to think about because that way lay madness, after the class or was like, ok, yeah, I got this.
Second, having a baby was interesting, intense, and drama-filled. Which. ..I don't know if you remember being a teenager, but that shit is like crack when you're 17. Like, sign me up! Life is boring and meaningless and here is a thing which will totally counteract that!
Third, the appeal of having another person completely love you and depend on you. It's so romantic. Which, again, is a thing that teenagers really crave.
And that's kind of it. It's very hard to think about long term consequences when you're a teenager with little or no real world experience. And if you're made to think about the possibility of having a baby it becomes something really desirable.
In conclusion, I am completely not surprised by this study. I lived it.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 7:18 AM on August 28, 2016 [57 favorites]
First, yeah, the class makes it seem, if not easy, at least doable. Before the class, babies were this mythical thing which you didn't even want to think about because that way lay madness, after the class or was like, ok, yeah, I got this.
Second, having a baby was interesting, intense, and drama-filled. Which. ..I don't know if you remember being a teenager, but that shit is like crack when you're 17. Like, sign me up! Life is boring and meaningless and here is a thing which will totally counteract that!
Third, the appeal of having another person completely love you and depend on you. It's so romantic. Which, again, is a thing that teenagers really crave.
And that's kind of it. It's very hard to think about long term consequences when you're a teenager with little or no real world experience. And if you're made to think about the possibility of having a baby it becomes something really desirable.
In conclusion, I am completely not surprised by this study. I lived it.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 7:18 AM on August 28, 2016 [57 favorites]
Trauma comes from the terror that someone you adore is in danger and you're unable to help.
A few weeks ago my brother-in-law and his family, including his 4-year-old son, were having a nice vacation at a cabin in New Mexico. Standing on the porch, my brother-in-law looked over to see his son in the driveway, playing.
And then realized that at the end of the driveway was a black bear sniffing around.
He screamed at the bear, scared his kid, and ran and got him inside. The bear wasn't scared, though; it came back several times over the weekend despite them banging pots and pans and yelling. Meanwhile the kid was throwing tantrums because he couldn't play outside.
If brother-in-law wasn't already bald, I assume he would have gained several new gray hairs that day.
That moment, when he saw the bear, and his kid, and felt that fear, and knew his kid was helpless to save himself, that's the stuff that gives parents nightmares.
posted by emjaybee at 7:18 AM on August 28, 2016 [10 favorites]
A few weeks ago my brother-in-law and his family, including his 4-year-old son, were having a nice vacation at a cabin in New Mexico. Standing on the porch, my brother-in-law looked over to see his son in the driveway, playing.
And then realized that at the end of the driveway was a black bear sniffing around.
He screamed at the bear, scared his kid, and ran and got him inside. The bear wasn't scared, though; it came back several times over the weekend despite them banging pots and pans and yelling. Meanwhile the kid was throwing tantrums because he couldn't play outside.
If brother-in-law wasn't already bald, I assume he would have gained several new gray hairs that day.
That moment, when he saw the bear, and his kid, and felt that fear, and knew his kid was helpless to save himself, that's the stuff that gives parents nightmares.
posted by emjaybee at 7:18 AM on August 28, 2016 [10 favorites]
My small Catholic 8th grade class used eggs for this. At least six of the ten girls in the class ended up pregnant by Junior year.
(When my best friend's egg broke he made it an iron-lung-like life support box)
posted by drezdn at 7:29 AM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
(When my best friend's egg broke he made it an iron-lung-like life support box)
posted by drezdn at 7:29 AM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
I was in the last generation/class of my high school to have a flour baby junior year. I came home from prom to find that my mom had left the baby on the couch all night. I gave her some crap for this and when the parental evaluations were done, she wrote a long page in small handwriting about how flour babies were easily ignored and forgotten. The next year they had Baby Think It Overs for 24 hours apiece and the girl with the "nightmare baby" won some kind of award for best mother at the end of the year.
I got a slight bit of crap for my flour baby not being super soft and squishy to the touch because I wasn't physically carrying it around in my arms all the time--I had a Cabbage Patch baby carrier and was using that in class. But she let me off the hook on that one.
The guys dealing with this were pretty funny--one guy named his baby "You" (seriously) and took advantage of the "babysitting service option" (i.e. flour babies were allowed to be left in a locker in the home ec room for one period a day) a lot so he got some crap for that. Another guy, well, we decorated the shit out of his baby when he left it with our group in English class and he came back commenting on how ugly his kid was. And then that guy, after the assignment was over, just kept dropping his flour sack over and over again until it broke all over. This is why they may not give babies to the boys, apparently.
But that dead baby trial? DAMN.
"Human beings are emotionally ready for adulthood about five years before modern society is ready to let us out of a state of artificially maintained infanthood. "
Yeah, but unfortunately they generally aren't ready for being able to support a significant other and child with suitable employment in our society without parental assistance at the same time that their body could produce a baby. This is not a world in which a 15-year-old can get married and be having a baby by 16 and running a household while her husband farms and be okay easily.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:16 AM on August 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
I got a slight bit of crap for my flour baby not being super soft and squishy to the touch because I wasn't physically carrying it around in my arms all the time--I had a Cabbage Patch baby carrier and was using that in class. But she let me off the hook on that one.
The guys dealing with this were pretty funny--one guy named his baby "You" (seriously) and took advantage of the "babysitting service option" (i.e. flour babies were allowed to be left in a locker in the home ec room for one period a day) a lot so he got some crap for that. Another guy, well, we decorated the shit out of his baby when he left it with our group in English class and he came back commenting on how ugly his kid was. And then that guy, after the assignment was over, just kept dropping his flour sack over and over again until it broke all over. This is why they may not give babies to the boys, apparently.
But that dead baby trial? DAMN.
"Human beings are emotionally ready for adulthood about five years before modern society is ready to let us out of a state of artificially maintained infanthood. "
Yeah, but unfortunately they generally aren't ready for being able to support a significant other and child with suitable employment in our society without parental assistance at the same time that their body could produce a baby. This is not a world in which a 15-year-old can get married and be having a baby by 16 and running a household while her husband farms and be okay easily.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:16 AM on August 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
Can I just say that as a person not familiar with the US school system this whole thing about flour baby parenting classes sounds super weird. For a moment I assumed that the stories in this thread were some odd ironic in-joke that I just didn't get.
posted by Soi-hah at 8:54 AM on August 28, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by Soi-hah at 8:54 AM on August 28, 2016 [8 favorites]
Human beings are emotionally ready for adulthood about five years before modern society is ready to let us out of a state of artificially maintained infanthood.
You know, this sounds good until you think about it a little bit. How mature are most <25 year-olds you know... really? Most of the people I knew were at least sort of flaky until they got to around that age (including myself). They might be able to sort of function with a child but they are not really ready for the intricacies of balancing child care, a career, and all of the other complex work necessary to survive and succeed in our society. At least, not without assistance.
I honestly think that the reason people stay 'kids' longer in our society is because our society is more complex in many meaningful ways than those in the past, and you need more time to learn how to live in it properly and also need more maturity to function within it.
posted by Mitrovarr at 8:55 AM on August 28, 2016 [16 favorites]
You know, this sounds good until you think about it a little bit. How mature are most <25 year-olds you know... really? Most of the people I knew were at least sort of flaky until they got to around that age (including myself). They might be able to sort of function with a child but they are not really ready for the intricacies of balancing child care, a career, and all of the other complex work necessary to survive and succeed in our society. At least, not without assistance.
I honestly think that the reason people stay 'kids' longer in our society is because our society is more complex in many meaningful ways than those in the past, and you need more time to learn how to live in it properly and also need more maturity to function within it.
posted by Mitrovarr at 8:55 AM on August 28, 2016 [16 favorites]
ObsSF: There was an SF short story (don't remember the name or author) about a toy company that researched the appeal of dolls. The narrator said they assumed that young girls played with dolls, modeling the behavior of their mothers, in anticipation of becoming adult women — they instead found that adult women had babies 'so they could continue to play with dolls'.
Being SF, the result of this study was leaked, resulting in the World Government Population Control Board outlawing dolls.
posted by rochrobbb at 9:12 AM on August 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
Being SF, the result of this study was leaked, resulting in the World Government Population Control Board outlawing dolls.
posted by rochrobbb at 9:12 AM on August 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
I honestly think that the reason people stay 'kids' longer in our society is because our society is more complex in many meaningful ways than those in the past, and you need more time to learn how to live in it properly and also need more maturity to function within it.
Also, neurologically, our brains are not actually finished developing until ~25 years old or so.
posted by lazuli at 9:24 AM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
Also, neurologically, our brains are not actually finished developing until ~25 years old or so.
posted by lazuli at 9:24 AM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
Instead of robo babies they could have studied teens with infant siblings and a control groups without younger siblings. Having a real baby in the house (girls especially being expected to step up with childcare) and the looks they get in public when pushing their sibling in a pram (although the boys generally got positive comments) seems to have had 100% success in preventing teen pregnancies amoung my peer group.
posted by saucysault at 9:28 AM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by saucysault at 9:28 AM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
This makes a lot of sense to me. I do truly think that if you give "teens" responsibility they often really surprise you - I say this as a 17-year old Army enlistee who later, supervised other 17-year old enlistees. We as a society do not give a lot of meaning to those people, but they can definitely handle it.
Maybe instead of flour sacks or robots we should give teens a puppy of their very own. It will fill the unconditional love void, and the responsibility void, and also is basically like a toddler in its getting into shit and HOLY SHIT DOG WHY.
posted by corb at 9:35 AM on August 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
Maybe instead of flour sacks or robots we should give teens a puppy of their very own. It will fill the unconditional love void, and the responsibility void, and also is basically like a toddler in its getting into shit and HOLY SHIT DOG WHY.
posted by corb at 9:35 AM on August 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
they generally aren't ready for being able to support a significant other and child with suitable employment in our society without parental assistance
If we're setting the bar for parenting at "can financially and logistically support themselves and their immediate family without help from their parents", well shit, most of the new parents I know that are in their twenties and early thirties don't clear that bar. I'm not sure I can think of anyone my age with kids whose own parents don't help them out with a lot of (free) babysitting, at the very least.
Anyways I think the obvious lesson here is that they need to use eggs containing gross mind-controlling alien parasites, like in that one episode of Buffy. That'll lower teen pregnancy rates no problem.
posted by mstokes650 at 10:17 AM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
If we're setting the bar for parenting at "can financially and logistically support themselves and their immediate family without help from their parents", well shit, most of the new parents I know that are in their twenties and early thirties don't clear that bar. I'm not sure I can think of anyone my age with kids whose own parents don't help them out with a lot of (free) babysitting, at the very least.
Anyways I think the obvious lesson here is that they need to use eggs containing gross mind-controlling alien parasites, like in that one episode of Buffy. That'll lower teen pregnancy rates no problem.
posted by mstokes650 at 10:17 AM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
Soi-hah: back in the day when I went to high school, flour babies were an optional thing that might happen if you were taking some kind of home economics/"Family Living"-type class. I'm assuming the same or similar is happening today. Not everybody in the US does it and god knows they wouldn't have enough robot babies to hand out to an entire high school class anyway.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:23 AM on August 28, 2016
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:23 AM on August 28, 2016
Leaves with flour baby, returns with immortal hardtack baby
posted by zippy at 10:53 AM on August 28, 2016 [20 favorites]
posted by zippy at 10:53 AM on August 28, 2016 [20 favorites]
Sigh. As a teenager I KNEW I never wanted to be pregnant, EVER! What helped me to keep that from happening was acess to birth control and non judgmental people to dispense it to me, not a robot baby. Before I was able to get birth control or proper information about how one gets pregnant I would punch myself in the stomach if I was worried I might have gotten knocked up (this I might add, was before I was even having sex, I was just misinformed and very paranoid).
posted by WalkerWestridge at 11:46 AM on August 28, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by WalkerWestridge at 11:46 AM on August 28, 2016 [12 favorites]
Do the robo-babies have special sensors that can detect if you are wearing your favorite shirt when burping it, so it knows to puke all over the back of said shirt? I suppose it would also need an additional sensor to detect the presence of a burp rag.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:45 PM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 12:45 PM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
I honestly think that the reason people stay 'kids' longer in our society is because our society is more complex in many meaningful ways than those in the past
Of course. It's not just cruelty that keeps teenagers locked in a prison of make-work and unfulfillment; it's that you can't really make your way in the modern world with the tools available to even a very talented 13 year old. But the problem is our bodies don't know that. Starting at puberty our bodies fill with hormones meant to make us ready to hunt, raise families, and be productive members of society. That we can't do that today is an incredible source of frustration.
So when you give these teenagers the robobaby, this may be the first experience they've ever had of actually fulfilling that biological imperative to take on responsibility and rise to meet it. Sure from our side of the line we see all the downsides, but maybe it's overly simplistic to think that just by showing what a downer parenthood can be we are discouraging young parenthood. Because our bodies are ready to tell us at that age that responsibility is awesome, that being strong is difficult but rewarding, and that perseverence is its own reward. I think there is a sense which the adults who had this cool idea really have forgotten just how frustrating it is to be an adolescent in modern society, and why the experience of caring for a child might actually seem like a way to unlock a lot of things that are otherwise forbidden to people who aren't 18 or 21 yet.
posted by Bringer Tom at 1:09 PM on August 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
Of course. It's not just cruelty that keeps teenagers locked in a prison of make-work and unfulfillment; it's that you can't really make your way in the modern world with the tools available to even a very talented 13 year old. But the problem is our bodies don't know that. Starting at puberty our bodies fill with hormones meant to make us ready to hunt, raise families, and be productive members of society. That we can't do that today is an incredible source of frustration.
So when you give these teenagers the robobaby, this may be the first experience they've ever had of actually fulfilling that biological imperative to take on responsibility and rise to meet it. Sure from our side of the line we see all the downsides, but maybe it's overly simplistic to think that just by showing what a downer parenthood can be we are discouraging young parenthood. Because our bodies are ready to tell us at that age that responsibility is awesome, that being strong is difficult but rewarding, and that perseverence is its own reward. I think there is a sense which the adults who had this cool idea really have forgotten just how frustrating it is to be an adolescent in modern society, and why the experience of caring for a child might actually seem like a way to unlock a lot of things that are otherwise forbidden to people who aren't 18 or 21 yet.
posted by Bringer Tom at 1:09 PM on August 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
I have to wonder if folks like me, who have a birth control method that is 100 percent effective, could opt out.
posted by sonascope at 2:34 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by sonascope at 2:34 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Even more shockingly, some people actually choose to have babies even after having had and cared for a real baby!
posted by dsword at 2:37 PM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by dsword at 2:37 PM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
the threat of a real baby as punishment for sex?
But you do understand that if you have sex you might well end up with a baby? That certainly sounds like punishment.
posted by biffa at 2:49 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
But you do understand that if you have sex you might well end up with a baby? That certainly sounds like punishment.
posted by biffa at 2:49 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have to wonder if folks like me, who have a birth control method that is 100 percent effective, could opt out.
Sonascope, I went to an all-boys Catholic school in the late 1970's so this stupid fake-baby thing wasn't inflicted on me, but I can totally see protesting it as a requirement since I always knew I did not want to have children. (My wife too, one of the things that attracted us to one another.) I program computers and I love doing what I do, but I can totally see how people who hate math or don't think the way I do would want nothing to do with it. Why is it that we assume, particularly in an age with the technology we enjoy today, that parenthood is an inevitability for which we must prepare everybody?
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:52 PM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
Sonascope, I went to an all-boys Catholic school in the late 1970's so this stupid fake-baby thing wasn't inflicted on me, but I can totally see protesting it as a requirement since I always knew I did not want to have children. (My wife too, one of the things that attracted us to one another.) I program computers and I love doing what I do, but I can totally see how people who hate math or don't think the way I do would want nothing to do with it. Why is it that we assume, particularly in an age with the technology we enjoy today, that parenthood is an inevitability for which we must prepare everybody?
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:52 PM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
But you do understand that if you have sex you might well end up with a baby?
That is actually not true for a fairly large number of popular variations on what we call "sex."
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:59 PM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
That is actually not true for a fairly large number of popular variations on what we call "sex."
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:59 PM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
If they really wanted to discourage early motherhood, they should simulate pregnancy, not the babies themselves.
In freshman health class, we saw a video that featured a teenager giving birth. While it was fairly modest visually (the birth was filmed from the waist up), she was clearly in a lot of pain and agony and was screaming and crying throughout labor and delivery. It was extremely tough to watch.
We did the egg baby thing during that week in health class. I did not make it through any day that week without breaking my egg. (They didn't mark the eggs or anything, so I brought in a new egg every day without my teacher having any idea.)
Needless to say, I have no kids. : )
posted by SisterHavana at 3:26 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
In freshman health class, we saw a video that featured a teenager giving birth. While it was fairly modest visually (the birth was filmed from the waist up), she was clearly in a lot of pain and agony and was screaming and crying throughout labor and delivery. It was extremely tough to watch.
We did the egg baby thing during that week in health class. I did not make it through any day that week without breaking my egg. (They didn't mark the eggs or anything, so I brought in a new egg every day without my teacher having any idea.)
Needless to say, I have no kids. : )
posted by SisterHavana at 3:26 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
It's not so much that birth is an inevitability for which we must prepare everyone as everyone must do it; it's so that everyone has a basic competency, including the people who will eventually wind up giving birth. It's like herd immunity, but the vaccination is for ignorance.
posted by corb at 4:13 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by corb at 4:13 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
Why is it that we assume, particularly in an age with the technology we enjoy today, that parenthood is an inevitability for which we must prepare everybody?
Studies show around half of all pregnancies are unplanned. Curious to see if that will change in coming years, but in the meantime, how else could we handle things?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:13 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Studies show around half of all pregnancies are unplanned. Curious to see if that will change in coming years, but in the meantime, how else could we handle things?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:13 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
but in the meantime, how else could we handle things?
Well we could make abortion universally and easily available. Just an idea.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:16 PM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
Well we could make abortion universally and easily available. Just an idea.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:16 PM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
Not everybody who gets pregnant wants to get an abortion. Abortion is a choice for women, not compulsory.
posted by corb at 4:18 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by corb at 4:18 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Abortion is a choice for women, not compulsory.
But it's actually treated in the reverse sense in the US; it's only a choice for you if you are affluent, can travel, and can afford to spend a couple of hotel nights going through stupid mandatory waiting periods 300 miles from home. So how do we even know how it would be used if it was an actual choice, available to anybody who wanted it? I suspect some of these teens would actually still go along with the birth, which is probably why the robobabies are a bad idea. Parenthood, even teenage parenthood, requires a certain sense of power on the part of the mother. That's a kind of power that teenagers are generally denied, so I can see the attraction. It's a bad stupid kind of attraction, of course, but don't try to pretend it's not there.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:24 PM on August 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
But it's actually treated in the reverse sense in the US; it's only a choice for you if you are affluent, can travel, and can afford to spend a couple of hotel nights going through stupid mandatory waiting periods 300 miles from home. So how do we even know how it would be used if it was an actual choice, available to anybody who wanted it? I suspect some of these teens would actually still go along with the birth, which is probably why the robobabies are a bad idea. Parenthood, even teenage parenthood, requires a certain sense of power on the part of the mother. That's a kind of power that teenagers are generally denied, so I can see the attraction. It's a bad stupid kind of attraction, of course, but don't try to pretend it's not there.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:24 PM on August 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
My understanding is that we pretty much know what prevents teen pregnancies. Girls need the availability of physical prevention of a pregnancy, from good sex ed up to abortion access, and the availability of personal options to pregnancy -- that is, a particular girl knowing what a successful life looks like outside of young motherhood, her own idea of her future, her firm emotional grounding, her educational and financial support. But we can't finance the physical prevention, because of Jesus, and we can't invent the personal options out of whole cloth. So we buy shrieking robots, in order to say we tried.
I wish we could redirect robot baby funds towards working on a world in which teenage pregnancy doesn't ruin three lives. With support enough, it doesn't have to.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:37 PM on August 28, 2016 [21 favorites]
I wish we could redirect robot baby funds towards working on a world in which teenage pregnancy doesn't ruin three lives. With support enough, it doesn't have to.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:37 PM on August 28, 2016 [21 favorites]
When I was young, it was much easier - without being actually easy - for teens to get abortions. Literally no one in my graduating high school class had a baby. I'm sure my particular year was a fluke, not the norm, but it was possible for me to get through high school without knowing of anyone who got pregnant. The gossip circuits, which were all horrible and slut-shaming, of course, were very much about whether someone had gotten an abortion, because this meant that you were being too sexual. Abortion was bad because it signaled sexually unacceptable behavior, not because it reflected pregnancy or because abortion was bad, and there was no general sense that getting pregnant in high school meant that you would actually have a baby in high school.
My high school was mixed-class, but the tone was very much set by middle class people. It's funny - I had such a horrible time, but it was a pretty great set-up compared to what kids have now. There were no metal detectors, there were multiple doors in and out, seniors could go out for lunch, gym (which was a horrible site of persecution for many, including me) did at least include going outside and being active, you had a certain amount of freedom and privacy in use of the library and other spaces, it wasn't some kind of rich-person paradise but it was well-maintained. It's weird to think that in the last twenty years all that has passed away.
posted by Frowner at 6:13 PM on August 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
My high school was mixed-class, but the tone was very much set by middle class people. It's funny - I had such a horrible time, but it was a pretty great set-up compared to what kids have now. There were no metal detectors, there were multiple doors in and out, seniors could go out for lunch, gym (which was a horrible site of persecution for many, including me) did at least include going outside and being active, you had a certain amount of freedom and privacy in use of the library and other spaces, it wasn't some kind of rich-person paradise but it was well-maintained. It's weird to think that in the last twenty years all that has passed away.
posted by Frowner at 6:13 PM on August 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
I wish we could redirect robot baby funds towards working on a world in which teenage pregnancy doesn't ruin three lives. With support enough, it doesn't have to.
I think the robot baby thing in Australia is basically a derivative of the US program. Australia does have sex ed and abortion access,(*) but we still have teenage pregnancies - and I think it's clear that many of those pregnancies are the consequence of young women's deliberate choice to bear a child. As we've seen, these robot baby programs are not necessarily dissuasive; I think it's worth asking whether they might still have a positive role.
(*) A bit of Googling informs me that the cost of an abortion in Western Australia ranges from $500-$850 for Australian citizens, which can definitely be a lot for a teenager, and if they're under sixteen they will need a parent's or court's permission. You can find more information from the links here.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:00 PM on August 28, 2016
I think the robot baby thing in Australia is basically a derivative of the US program. Australia does have sex ed and abortion access,(*) but we still have teenage pregnancies - and I think it's clear that many of those pregnancies are the consequence of young women's deliberate choice to bear a child. As we've seen, these robot baby programs are not necessarily dissuasive; I think it's worth asking whether they might still have a positive role.
(*) A bit of Googling informs me that the cost of an abortion in Western Australia ranges from $500-$850 for Australian citizens, which can definitely be a lot for a teenager, and if they're under sixteen they will need a parent's or court's permission. You can find more information from the links here.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:00 PM on August 28, 2016
Joe in Australia - you say it as if it's nothing, but "needing a parent's or court's permission" is IN AND OF ITSELF a significant barrier to abortion for many teenagers.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:25 PM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:25 PM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
Sure, that's why I mentioned it. I don't know how the "court's permission" thing works in practice: it might be anything from a social worker handing the judge a list of names to a teenager needing to be a pro se litigant. But, a fifteen year-old needs a parent or guardian's permission to do basically anything, so it's not an unexpected barrier.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:39 PM on August 28, 2016
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:39 PM on August 28, 2016
But you do understand that if you have sex you might well end up with a baby?
The framing of sex = something you need to be punished for, plus the framing of babies=beings that are not people, but instruments of punishment for sin, is what I object to.
Foisting a baby on a parent unable to care for it, as though a baby were some sort of club good for beating people with, is not likely to lead to good outcomes for the baby. And sex may be unwise, but it is not a crime deserving of severe punishment.
Babies should be raised by people who are ready and supported in doing so. Punishment/shame should have absolutely nothing to do with that decision.
posted by emjaybee at 7:57 PM on August 28, 2016 [13 favorites]
The framing of sex = something you need to be punished for, plus the framing of babies=beings that are not people, but instruments of punishment for sin, is what I object to.
Foisting a baby on a parent unable to care for it, as though a baby were some sort of club good for beating people with, is not likely to lead to good outcomes for the baby. And sex may be unwise, but it is not a crime deserving of severe punishment.
Babies should be raised by people who are ready and supported in doing so. Punishment/shame should have absolutely nothing to do with that decision.
posted by emjaybee at 7:57 PM on August 28, 2016 [13 favorites]
I dunno if there's much deliberate pregnancy making Joe... but I do know that I've historically been a lot less vigilant about my seatbelt if I'm driving slowly and there are no cops around to fine me.
posted by taff at 8:39 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by taff at 8:39 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
I consider this unethical human experimentation.
posted by Fongotskilernie at 12:15 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Fongotskilernie at 12:15 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Why is it that we assume, particularly in an age with the technology we enjoy today, that parenthood is an inevitability for which we must prepare everybody?
Technology isn't even required—the likelihood that I'm going to knock up another dude is a hard zero, and it's pretty unlikely that we'll accidentally adopt a baby even as the most reckless type of teen.
posted by sonascope at 3:38 AM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
Technology isn't even required—the likelihood that I'm going to knock up another dude is a hard zero, and it's pretty unlikely that we'll accidentally adopt a baby even as the most reckless type of teen.
posted by sonascope at 3:38 AM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
My daughter took a parenting class just last year, where they were supposed to take care of a robot baby for a week. She didn't even last one night taking care of it; I had even offered to help. She ended up doing the alternate project (an interview of a person who experienced teen parenthood, and answering questions) instead. She got a "C". She was the first student who completely freaked out (like full-on panic attack) at having to deal with a baby.
I hope it has a lasting influence on her.
She is an only child, so she has no experience in taking care of other children.
posted by cass at 7:57 AM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
I hope it has a lasting influence on her.
She is an only child, so she has no experience in taking care of other children.
posted by cass at 7:57 AM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
it's pretty unlikely that we'll accidentally adopt a baby even as the most reckless type of teen.
Teenagers: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:11 AM on August 29, 2016 [5 favorites]
Teenagers: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:11 AM on August 29, 2016 [5 favorites]
I can easily see that (1) robot babies fail to show the full time and energy requirements of raising a baby, for many many reasons, and (2) nightmare robot baby, unlike human child, has no favorites - you can't pacify it with a favorite stuffed toy or favorite song or favorite food. (Two-month-old babies are, hypothetically, only getting breastmilk or formula - but dipping your finger in warm cocoa and putting that in the baby's mouth is often an effective distraction. But that won't work on a robot.) A robot won't react to a shiny rattle or the family dog, won't start to fall asleep the moment you strap it into a carseat.
Semi-rant: the only reason we have these projects is the rise of the isolated nuclear family and strict age-based socialization; kids who grow up in neighborhoods with "aunties" and "cousins" all over, where kids of all ages play together and older ones watch the younger ones, don't need the egg/flour/robot experience to teach them that parenting is a big responsibility.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:54 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Semi-rant: the only reason we have these projects is the rise of the isolated nuclear family and strict age-based socialization; kids who grow up in neighborhoods with "aunties" and "cousins" all over, where kids of all ages play together and older ones watch the younger ones, don't need the egg/flour/robot experience to teach them that parenting is a big responsibility.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:54 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Apart from the direct relationship to health and sex ed, I see this activity as another secondary school experience that aims to get students moving outward from their immature child egotism into gaining empathy skills and taking up responsibilities of adulthood. Often our classes (mine were literature classes) are about exploring and imagining worlds that aren't currently the students' own so that a variety of new things can be learned. We often teach subjects that involve testing hypotheses, employing experimentation, encouraging evaluation and synthesis through experiential and discovery learning. I mean, I'm thrilled that I never had to do this, but I can see why it was dreamed up for high school health classes.
posted by honey-barbara at 3:39 PM on August 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by honey-barbara at 3:39 PM on August 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
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posted by blue_beetle at 4:57 PM on August 27, 2016 [18 favorites]