Monthly Struggle

In Psychology class, we’ve been making babies. That sounds awkward but it’s not. We’ve been making fake babies out of old tights and cotton balls. The purpose of this project is to take care of the baby for four days and see how we get attached to this baby. In the beginning, I thought I wouldn’t get attached at all but that’s not what happened. As I made this baby, I got more and more excited to finally to take care of it. As I write this, I hold my baby in my numb left arm. Why did I think this was going to be easy? Going to classes with this baby was awful. I couldn’t hold all my boys and I kept dropping everything. Also, you’re supposed to take care of it as a real baby so you can’t just shove it into a locker or a backpack because our teacher would find out. Today was my first experience taking the baby out in public. As I waited for the bus, I got used to the occasional smile from pedestrians and the casual stare from the drivers. It was different when I got onto the bus though. When I tapped my compass card, the bus driver laughed and said hello to my “baby”. I continued down to the back of the bus and I was shocked when an elderly lady immediately offered her seat for me which I politely declined but she was resistant. At this point the whole bus was staring and I had to explain that my baby wasn’t real and it was a project. One mother started to laugh and said “I was wondering why your baby looked so funny and had google eyes!” This elderly couple gave me their seat after and I gave up declining and sat down as the whole bus laughed at me. I had to deal with one arm being occupied constantly and I also had to deal with the stares from everyone. It was a bit comforting knowing that my classmates were going through the same thing but it was still bothersome. This situation opened my eyes to the stigma around teenage pregnancy and how young women must feel having to deal with the stares in public. This is just a project for me but for others, it’s reality.