When 14-year old Olivia brought a fake baby home as part of an assignment for Early Childhood Education Class, she had no idea what would follow.
A few months back, Olivia brought a baby doll named William home. She got the doll on a Friday and her task was to keep the baby, feed it, comfort it and practically do anything a real mom of a real baby would do during the day, until she would return it on the following Monday.
Somewhere in between Olivia broke down and she just couldn’t take it anymore. That was when her mother, Lawren Cole Galloway, took a picture of her and posted it on social media, accompanied by a description of her daughter’s situation at the time.
“She’s had him since Friday night. She is absolutely exhausted and ready to quit the class and give William back. (Maybe even throw him back)”
The mother of four, Olivia, at the time 14, a 6-year old girl, a 4-year old boy and a 3-week old girl, definitely knew what to expect from an interactive baby doll. However, her daughter who had been present and possibly helping in her siblings’ bringing up, had no idea it would be so hard to keep up with and cater for the needs a baby has.
“It’s definitely been a learning experience. My favorite moment so far is when she came into my room last night around 3 am. She was crying real tears while feeding him his bottle. She was begging me to help her because she just wanted to get some sleep. Yeah, no.”
According to Ms. Galloway herself, the girl was so overwhelmed by the needs of the doll, she almost crashed. The best part, however, was that the mother didn’t help Olivia at all. She let her take full responsibility of the baby and do whatever she had to do to keep it safe, fed, clean and complaint-free. However, Olivia didn’t seem to easily attend to all these tasks.
Ms. Galloway describes how difficult it was for Olivia to do even the simplest of things, like eat or take a shower. More specifically, she said that the girl had to reheat her dinner three times, and in the meantime feed William, have him burp and rock him for about twenty minutes each time. Regarding the shower, she had to take the doll with her, loaded up in his car seat, and not even wash her hair for fear of the baby starting to cry.
What were Olivia’s results? She only got a 65%, but she was given a second chance with another doll, so that she could do a better job the second time around. Unlike Olivia, real moms don’t get a second chance and that is why before starting a family one needs to be fully aware of what it comes with: it’s not always fun; it’s stressful, tiring and overwhelming at times, too. Having such assignments at school is great and gives teenagers a first-hand experience of what being a parent really involves.
Fortunately for Olivia, she learned a valuable lesson. Parenting is hard and it takes a lot of work. Meanwhile, mom is grateful that her daughter got to learn such a valuable life lesson that will hopefully stick with her for years to come.
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