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CNN Live Saturday
A New Way to Discourage Teenagers From Becoming Parents
Aired May 12, 2001 - 13:13 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: We're turning out attention this Mother's Day weekend to efforts to discourage teenagers from becoming parents. Educators have found an effective way of demonstrating a huge responsibility of being a mother or a father: it's a baby, or at least something that looks, acts and sounds like a real baby.
The program is called "Baby, think it over," and joining me now are two people who have taken part in it, teacher Debby Tarbutton and sixth-grader Ross Beall, who had to be dad for a while. So delighted you could come.
Why don't you introduce us to the babies that you brought as well? Who do I have?
DEBBY TARBUTTON, HIGHTOWER TRAIL MIDDLE SCHOOL: You have Michael.
KELLEY: I have Michael. And this is?
ROSS BEALL, 6TH GRADER: Oh, this is Cally.
KELLEY: Cally.
BEALL: This is Carson.
KELLEY: Carson, and?
TARBUTTON: That's Molly.
KELLEY: Molly. OK. Now, what happens with this program, these little dolls are so life-like and only one of the four dolls that we have is programmed. And what does that mean, Debby, when you program the baby?
TARBUTTON: You program the baby to show abuse, neglect and total minutes of crying. Cally is programmed as a demo, but they can also be programmed to be cranky, or normal, or easy. And so, they -- you can't predict when a baby is crying, just like Cally is crying right now. And when they do the right thing, they could.
KELLEY: And what do you do when the baby starts to cry? You took the baby home, Ross?
BEALL: Well, you can either -- you can rock her, or if she needs to be fed, you need to feed her, burp her in you need to.
KELLEY: Right, and it shows the amount of time that the baby cries, and will even register -- now, see, there's some cooing, you did well.
TARBUTTON: Good job.
KELLEY: But you can tell exactly how the student is taking care of the baby.
TARBUTTON: That's correct.
KELLEY: Right.
TARBUTTON: That's what I think is so wonderful about this program. They have a realistic way to take care of the baby, and then they get the feedback of whether the head was supported, whether they were gentle. It shows rough handling. It shows if the baby was stuck in a closet, while it was programmed, so it really gives them -- this isn't kid stuff. They really have to take care of the child.
KELLEY: What happened when you took the baby home? What did you find out?
BEALL: It cried almost once every three hours, and mostly needed feeding. But sometimes -- like one time, I let its head fall back by accident, and had to rock her for about 30 seconds. So, it was a really neat experience.
KELLEY: Did you take her home in thinking that this would be easy?
BEALL: Yeah, I did, but actually it turned out challenging.
KELLEY: What was the most challenging to you?
BEALL: Waking up in the middle of the night and taking care of her for 30 minutes.
KELLEY: How many times in a night did you had to get up?
BEALL: Three times.
KELLEY: Three times the night you took. Now, I also saw that you are in the band and you play the drums.
BEALL: Yes.
KELLEY: Could you play the drums while the baby was with you?
BEALL: Yes, I could.
KELLEY: And you didn't wake the baby, or it wasn't a problem?
BEALL: No.
KELLEY: How about tennis? You play tennis.
BEALL: Oh, yes. At tennis practice, I took the baby with me, and she did very well, she did not cry at all. She did really well, but she got her days and nights mixed up, and of course she cried all night.
KELLEY: So what do you think about being a dad?
BEALL: I look forward to it when I get married and I want to have children, and this is a great experience to have.
KELLEY: Interesting though, isn't it, when they take the baby home and realize how much responsibility it is, Debby, and it's not as easy as they say they might think?
TARBUTTON: I think truly that the main lesson is that it's a continual thing. You can't -- it's not something -- it's something that's right there with you all the time, and it is something that you have no control over when the baby is going to cry or need you, and it does interrupt whatever activities you were doing.
And so, you have to stop and tend to the baby, and I think that the children for the -- usually, they're programmed about 16 hours when they take them home. And they have the car seat, and they have to put it in the car correctly, and they have their diaper bag, and you know, the diaper bag, so it's as realistic as it can possibly be.
KELLEY: Yes, that's quite...
TARBUTTON: And the students take it very seriously.
KELLEY: Yeah, the technology there is amazing that you can do that and realize how the baby has been taken care of. Wonderful experience, and I'm so delighted you could come to talk to us, because I think it's really a great program. I know I had a friend whose son was taking the baby home, and he usually referees and does all of these things, and he canceled all of his activities for the weekend because he was taking home the baby. So, and eye-opener.
Thanks very much, Debby. Thanks, Ross.
BEALL: You're welcome.
TARBUTTON: Thank you.
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