Last week, students taking the class Developmental Psychology of Children were given plastic babies to stimulate the care of a real one. Students share their thoughts on their experiences.
“At first I thought it was going to be easy because I’ve been taking care of my own baby sister since she was born, so I have experience. And this is just a fake baby who cries and I just need to calm her down. I was excited when I got the baby the first day, but when she started to cry and I couldn’t do anything but try to calm her down, I was dumbfounded because at that moment, I realized it wasn’t going to be easy. She was keeping me up at night. On the first day, I would say she would cry about every four to five hours for exactly 14 minutes straight. It frustrated me that she wouldn’t coo after I calmed her down and it made me question if I was doing anything wrong. The next day, I unfortunately got a fever and so it was even harder to take care of her. In the end, I would say I was very glad to let go of my baby because it meant I was able to keep up with my work and sleep,” said senior Hannah Cruz.
“For my child development class I had to take care of a baby for two days. Overall, my experience was pretty beneficial because it showed and taught me a lot about taking care of a child and how much it takes. It showed me that I am nowhere ready to take care of a baby and that I need to wait until I am emotionally, financially and mentally ready,” said senior Hannah Bui.
“For me, I actually really liked the baby simulation, since my baby was extremely well-behaved. Basically, it stopped crying when the key was put into its back. This helped because when it cried in class, it didn’t disturb the rest of the class too much, since it only cried for a few seconds before it stopped. The only thing that bothered me, really, was when it cried during the night. The first night, I had to wake up twice, the first time at 2 a.m. Before I slept, I was so worried that I wouldn’t hear it if it cried, so I made sure to tuck its shirt up and expose the speaker. When it cried, I heard it loud and clear, and its cry woke up everyone in my house (they complained to me in the morning). I think the first time during the night was the worst and the ones later weren’t so bad since I got used to it and I was pretty prepared,” said junior Ashley Tran.
“I expected this experience to be really easy, but it wasn’t. The baby cries a lot and at very unexpected times, including during class and at late nights. The baby was also a lot heavier than I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be super light to carry around. Overall, it was a very fun experience,” said senior Meera Kumar.
“[My experience with the plastic baby] was pretty much what I expected. I was surprised that we didn’t have to do much because when the baby cried, all we had to do was stuck a key in. We didn’t have to change the diapers or anything,” said senior Lydia Park.
“[The baby] was a lot heavier than I thought it was going to be. It was really fun picking out her clothes. It has given me a new perspective on babies. Even though it’s not a real child, it helps teach people it’s hard to take care of [a baby],” said senior Amber Wozniak.
It’s also fatherhood. GENDER EQUALITY. MENINISM. Is Baron Banner misandry?