By Carolina Alphonso, Staff Writer
You’re walking to class, ready to endure another period of learning and praying there are no new assignments. Suddenly something catches your eye and it’s…. a baby?! Many of the students at River Hill have been seen walking to their classes with baskets, strollers and other baby carriers with baby dolls or bags of flour with baby onesies on them.
This Baby Project is part of the Human Growth and Development class. Mrs. Noecker, the teacher of Human Growth and Development, explains that the purpose of the project is to “spread awareness of how difficult taking care of a child is. Even though they aren’t living, it’s still challenging to have them wherever you go.” It’s a challenging task to go throughout your day while also making sure your “child” is with you at all times. Junior Freya Patel explains how “taking care of a kid is not easy. I have to make sure they’re with me and when I need to use the bathroom or I have something going on, I need to make sure someone is watching them and being careful too.”
Mrs. Noecker gave students the option to undergo the project individually or co-parent with a partner. John Lee, a junior, believes that the co-parenting tactic “is easier since I have someone to watch over the baby when I’m at band practice or other extracurricular activities.” It seemed to be an easier option, splitting the days and times between you and your partner, although Junior Kaya Roy had a few complaints about the tactic, describing it as “really useful, but it’s strange to only have them for one day and then to just not hold them.” Junior Sarah Thomas had a similar response, stating, “The thing is, you don’t know what your partner is doing with them. If they’re being careful with them or if one day they just forgot to bring them. But other than that, it is very nice to be able to rely on someone else as well to take care of them.”
Alternatively, some students decided to take the single-parent route. “I don’t have to worry about my partner making comments saying things like ‘oh I don’t like that’ since I’m doing it by myself,” Junior Suhana Kennedy had commented. Many have already become so attached to the baby that even a second alone would be too much for them. Doing it individually allows them to spend every second with their child. “I would say that the work and watching the child is harder to do when you can’t rely on someone 100%. But I’m still glad that I did this individually.” Sophomore Adil Zaidi commented.
Seeing people walking around the school can be a bit jarring. Freshman Jacob Smithson was shocked to see babies around the school. “I wasn’t expecting it.” He commented. “It was interesting to just see kids carry babies around.” To the Freshmen, it’s no surprise that they would be confused by this.
The Human Growth class has the babies from the 28th to the 1st of November. A whole week of carrying around babies to get the perfect score for the project. Hopefully, the students take this experience and learn from it. Babies are hard work!