Last week, students in Christine Stutzman’s Interpersonal Relationships (IPR) class were given iCare babies to take care of for 48 hours. Students chose partners to share the dolls with and were allowed to name their temporary babies.
iCare babies are dolls that emulate the actions of real infants. While taking care of the dolls, students had to carefully hold the doll’s neck, along with bottle feed, burp, and change its diaper. Students also had to tend for the baby when it woke up in the middle of the night.
Inside the dolls is a system in which the teacher can see how well each student takes care of the baby. “There’s a temperature register which can tell me if they left it in the car or didn’t have it covered from the cold”, Christine stated.
Annie Hu (‘15) took care of one of the babies whom she and Carolyn Saylor (‘15) named Arike Diane Hu. During the school day, Annie had to drag Arike’s diaper bag around with her to classes and care for Arike while trying to do school work. At home, Annie had to juggle doing everyday tasks and caring for the doll.
Keeping an eye on the babies every minute of the day was a common obstacle for students. “The baby cried a lot, and it was hard to take care of it on my own”, Annie stated. She recalls getting only a few hours of sleep, comparative to the amount some parents of real infants get. The biggest thing Annie learned was how difficult it is to be a single parent.
Students had to contend with figuring out what the baby needed, too. Marisa Marquez (‘15) stated, “Since babies can not speak, it was a “guess and check” sort of scenario”. The seemingly constant crying was the most frustrating part to Marisa.
The purpose of taking care of the iCare babies is to let the students “see the responsibility it takes to care for a baby, the time consumption, and to see what it’s like to raise a child from a single parent’s the perspective”, Christine said.
Overall, the 48 hours students spent struggling were a good experience to have for the future. Students learned how difficult caring for a child is and were given some preparation.
“To be a good father and mother requires that the parents defer many of their own needs and desires in favor of the needs of their children.” James E. Faust
-Kati Quiggle