Kids Get a Grade AA Lesson in Parenthood : ‘This thing’s gotta go to sleep. I’m tired of this.’

Sixth-graders at Martin Luther King Elementary School spent the week trying to act like parents. It wasn’t easy.

For the 23 students in teacher Linda Taggart’s class, the trials and tribulations began Monday afternoon when they returned from lunch to find a banner reading “Congratulations on the New Addition to Your Family” hung across the front of the room. A few minutes later, the school nurse arrived, dressed in her scrubs, to deliver dozens of pink and blue hard-boiled eggs. For the rest of the week, the students had to care for the eggs as if they were babies.

The youngsters drew lots to find out if they were going to have boys or girls, and thus discovered the first potential frustration of parenthood.

Hoping for a Boy

Duane Baumgarten hung his head in disappointment when he was presented with a pink egg.

“No fair!” he cried moments later when Mozelle Harris, who had wanted a girl, was handed two blue eggs.

Despite the whoops and applause that greeted the twins’ arrival, Mozelle was less than thrilled.

“Duane!” she called. “Give me five bucks. They’re up for adoption.”

“No trading!” Taggart called out. “Just like real life.”

Lesson in Responsibility

The “egg-baby” project, a new part of the school’s social hygiene curriculum, was designed to teach students some lessons in responsibility. Martin Luther King Elementary is in a Southeast San Diego neighborhood where teen-age pregnancies are common. Faculty members hope the exercise will encourage their students to think twice about whether they are ready to cope with having children.

“They’re never too young to start thinking about these things,” Taggart said.

The exercise had been done at high schools in the San Diego Unified School District, but never at an elementary school.

Shoebox Nurseries

Although Taggart had encouraged her students to prepare for the arrival of their eggs by making blankets and nurseries out of shoeboxes or Easter baskets, many found they had forgotten important details--like thinking up names.

“You can name him after you get to know his personality,” Taggart told one student. “Some parents do that.”

The kids began developing their own parental personalities almost immediately. Some were tender, cradling their eggs in blankets and stroking them gently. Others were reckless, spinning their eggs like tops across their desks and, if they were lucky, catching them before they went crashing to the floor.

Go to Sleep, Please

“This is precious stuff,” said Naimah Carothers, rocking her egg in a makeshift bassinet.

“This thing’s gotta go to sleep, “ Rudy Munoz said of his egg after 15 trying minutes of fatherhood. “I’m tired of this.”

There were super-moms who enjoyed playing with their eggs so much that they volunteered to spend recess egg-sitting for their classmates. And there were nervous parents who, after entrusting their eggs to a sitter, would stand guard to make sure the babies were being cared for properly.

“You’ve got the blanket over their heads, they can’t breathe,” Lucy Torres told Mozelle after agreeing to let the girl watch her triplets.

“If you want us to baby-sit, go away,” Mozelle replied.

The Guilt of Broken Shells

By Friday, even the most devoted mothers and fathers had to admit they were tired of parenthood.

Some of the students had to deal with the guilt of letting their eggs fall off desks and dressers and bandaging them with masking tape. Others, whose roughhousing led to the untimely deaths of their eggs, had to face the shame of being branded as criminals. Four students found themselves on trial before a jury of their classmates on charges of child abuse and murder.

Even the kids whose eggs survived the week in one piece had complaints about parenthood.

“You have to change your life,” said Mozelle.

Oscar Ruelas said the hardest part was remembering that he had to take care of the egg at all times.

A Crimp in Play Time

“It was frustrating,” he said. “Sometimes I’d forget my egg someplace and have to go all the way back for it.”

“It was also frustrating when you wanted to go play but you had to sit there and keep it with you,” Mozelle said.

“Just like parents don’t like to always stay home and change diapers,” Taggart interjected.

Some of the boys said that, although it had been embarrassing to have their friends see them carrying the eggs around all the time, it had also made them proud.

“I was bragging about it, showing my friends I had a baby girl egg,” said Duane, who by the end of the week had recovered from his disappointment at not having a boy.

“It was sort of fun,” said Timmy Harris. “Making it clothes and making it blankets.”

But, when Taggart asked how many students actually wanted to have children someday, only 13 raised their hands.

Mozelle may have summed up her classmates’ feelings:

“Sometimes (a baby) is fun to have around, but sometimes you don’t want it.”