Baby Camp
Thu., June 26, 09:33 AM
I am always saddened to see a teenager become pregnant before she knows anything about the real world. How is she going to cope? (You really think her parents are going to support her for another eighteen years?) Does she think she can hold down a job sufficient to care for her child, without training? Who takes care of the baby while you work? You thought you were going to college? Get a grip, girl, you aren’t going anywhere. And the greatest misconception of all (if I may use that word), “my baby’s father loves me and will take care of us.”
Because I believe these girls need help, I have toyed with the idea of a residential high school for young mothers to learn what they need to know. Curriculum might be built around basic understanding of their world. Chemistry teaches cooking and what happens to foods when they are mixed and heated. Biology teaches nutrition and how one’s body works. (Oh, yes, maybe a “refresher course” on where babies come from.) More biology — infection and sickness — can guard against difficulties before they occur. Basic math is learning to read a supermarket ad, how to keep a budget and use food stamps; everyone should know some personal finance, like having a bank account, paying rent and working with a landlord, deciding when not how to spend what money you have.
Required living-in serves a couple of purposes. For one thing, it provides (we hope) a clean and safe environment. Secondly, living with a roommate or two results in a mini-household, where they learn to help each other. They can trade baby-sitting, they can do homework together; they might share necessary tasks. (I’ll shop for the food if you’ll cook it. I’ll go to the laundromat if you’ll watch the kids.) Finally, there’s always a kind of independence attached to being away from one’s authority figure.
The girls might be taught how to run a small business, and the first one that came to my mind was day care. Not only is this an ever-growing need, but health care and its ancillary services may be one of the few constant needs in a changing economy.
This is, of course, a pipe dream. It would take more money than any grant one might get, and it would be years before we could tell if it were successful in any aspect. Approaching the private sector is almost certainly fruitless, because it might very well be a losing proposition.
I wondered about variations, like offering the curriculum in a regular high school. Would it hurt to make some of those courses compulsory? Personal finance is something we all need (look what happened when we brought up a generation that doesn’t understand it!) I knew only one teacher who taught it in our school system; he may be one of my favorite teachers of all time, just for that. What about teaching child care — with real babies, not dolls — to boys as well as girls? In any case, it all went to the back burner.
When I heard about seventeen girls in one high school becoming pregnant at the same time, planned or not, it occurred to me that I had it wrong. Parents send their kids to tennis camp or computer camp or music camp. Why not offer a baby camp? The subjects would be more or less the same, but it’s two summer months total immersion. Campers who already have babies bring them along; babies can be provided for those who don’t have them. Counselors have babies too. The benefits of the residential high school apply, including group support and the realization that life goes on as it must, even with a baby to care for. Having less experience with camps, I would need assistance in developing such a program. Of course, it will never happen. Asking parents to pay to prevent something that will never happen to my child? I don’t think so.
In the meantime, I noticed that NBC began a new show yesterday, “The Baby Borrowers.” Personally, I’m not much into reality shows, but this was one I obviously had to inspect. The premise is that five teenage couples, who have been dating for some time, get to keep house and take care of babies. They are getting to “try out adulthood.” I was pleased with the announcement that no one wins prizes and no one gets voted off.
Several of the girls really want to be mommies. They think they are good with kids. Some of the boys have signed up for the experiment because they believe it will change the girls’ minds. A couple of the boys have strengths I was surprised to see. And yes, I will be tuning in next week.
For more information about the show, Google it. There has been a lot of discussion already; the official web page is part of NBC.
