what is up with the egg/flour "pretend baby" thing in TV shows

okay, so, I'm going through buffy and I just got to hte episode where they got the fake baby thing, where they have to take care of a "baby" that is actually just an egg, but it's been done before with flour (Danny Phantom is one that springs to mind). HAS ANYONE ACTUALLY DONE THIS EVER? I swear I've seen at least 5-10 TV shows with this in it, where they are supposed to learn that taking care of a baby sucks or whatever and I never did this, and I don't know anyone who did. Does anyone actually do this anymore? did they do it in your high school? It's bugging the shit outta me.

okay, so, I'm going through buffy and I just got to hte episode where they got the fake baby thing, where they have to take care of a "baby" that is actually just an egg, but it's been done before with flour (Danny Phantom is one that springs to mind). HAS ANYONE ACTUALLY DONE THIS EVER? I swear I've seen at least 5-10 TV shows with this in it, where they are supposed to learn that taking care of a baby sucks or whatever and I never did this, and I don't know anyone who did. Does anyone actually do this anymore? did they do it in your high school? It's bugging the shit outta me.

We didn't have eggs and flour sacks. We had actual dolls that would cry periodically and required holding a key in place to quiet. It would also tally the number of neglects and abuses against it.

It was basically the worst thing ever.

I feel like there was a class at my school, but not a mandatory one, because I didn't take it. But it didn't involve an egg or flour, it involved a baby doll that would start making crying noises if you didn't handle it gently enough.

The home ec. class at my high school did it. I took woodworking though, so I just got to laugh at the people carrying around eggs in little blankets.

I don't know about anything with eggs or flour, but the home ec 'fake baby' thing has been on TV shows since I can remember, but I've never heard of anyone actually doing it after, like, 1985 or something. I think it's one of those things where the writers are all old guys and just sort of assume the thing they all know about is something everyone knows about.

edit: going by previous responses, nevermind. Unless you're all secretly yuppies or something.

so weird! the fact that it's an actual thing blows my mind. (I distinctly remember taking a home ec. class too)

it's still fuckin dumb though (ned's declassified school survival guide had the actual baby doll)

@Hailinel:

A.) Why turn a key? That's not how babies work.

B.) Did any students find creative abuses that wouldn't set off the counter?

C.) Here's a TVTropes page I found on the subject, @Animasta.

If you drop a baby, yellow goo exudes from its' head. It's science fact!

I vaguely remember some people in my high school doing this, must of been a home economics class or something.

Ryan said his high school did something like this.

That's a rather good episode of Buffy & yes at least some years ago in the public high school I went to it was an optional class (can't remember the name of it exactly but pretty much what was in Buffy is close enough from what I heard about it) that used the eggs to just teach some responsibility for people to learn. Guess it was just one of those classes to pick from if you didn't want to be on one of the school sports teams, music or what I picked shop class.

I remember those crying baby dolls showing up at a house party or two.

EDIT: Must've been a Home-Ec classes that everyone perceived to be an easy A or something.

Sounds like a gigantic conspiracy to bake a gigantic delicious cake.

We never had this sort of thing, so it has always been bizarre to me.

@Chtasm said:

Sounds like a gigantic conspiracy to bake a gigantic delicious cake.

that's what happened at the end of the Danny Phantom episode, one of them started a baby sitting thing and then his mother decided to bake cakes with all of them

so many cakes

In middle school, I think 7th grade, we had floor babies. They told us to take them home and take care of them. I just left it in my locker. On the last day of the project I took my bag of floor out of my locker at the start of school and the teacher saw me. Even though I failed that project I still somehow succeed in life. Not sure how though ;)

We did this in school. I threw mine up in the air and it landed on the road. Not taking care of no egg.

There was an episode of That 70's Show where Jacky gave an Egg to Kelso to take care of as one part of a multi part test to see if he was worthy of getting back together with.

My high school never had anything like that.

It was a rad high school.

Ha! I remember watching this stuff on TV as a kid and thinking "Man, these writers are just horrible. That sounds like the dumbest thing ever, how can they come up with stuff like this?" cause where I live you'd probably get laughed out of the room if you come up with stuff like this

I did that in 8th grade because my school was terrible.

@Hailinel said:

We didn't have eggs and flour sacks. We had actual dolls that would cry periodically and required holding a key in place to quiet. It would also tally the number of neglects and abuses against it. It was basically the worst thing ever.

I remember seeing some kids in high school carrying those things around.

This kinda stuff doesn't happen in England.

Most girls usually have a real baby by then. They get double social points if its a mixed race baby apparently. Its just the way it is in this country. Its the only way to get a house. Also the government will pay your rent. They'll give you beer money cos you can't get a job. They also give you drug money. They call it child benefit though. Bit of a weird name for it.

*Edit*

I wanted to make a quick edit to say that the thing about the mixed race babies was a genuine "chav" fashion. It was cool for a time to have a mixed race baby. I am not being racist. This is obviously just a bit of a jest aimed at a degrading society with a ridiculously high teenage pregnancy rate. I hope somebody finds it funny.

I had a doll, but it was basically just a big ass, person-shaped bean bag.

my highschool one of the classes had you take care of this educational robot baby that had all sorts of recording devices in it. like it'd randomly start crying and if you left it alone too long it'd record that stuff.

i never got assigned it, only chicks got it actually.

sexism is funny

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@Yes. In high school it was a thing. They also gave out fake babies that had computer in them that tracked shaken baby syndrom. Some girl had 98 cases of it recorded when she brought it back for a grade.

I had that baby....probably, back in middle school I had that electronic baby assignment pushed on me in some bullshit class. They paired me up with a girl that I hated (Not pretty by that way), she took the assignment seriously I shook that baby like a 9.5 earthquake every free moment I got...it was worth the F.

Nope. But we did have an egg drop "experiment" in my 8th grade science class. We were given an egg, some paper, and tape, and we were supposed to make something, like a parachute, to slow an egg down enough so it didn't break. Then the teacher would drop your egg from various heights; from just a foot off the ground up to the third floor landing in the stairwell.

Hopefully the same schools don't do the egg drop test.

@Video_Game_King said:

@Hailinel:

A.) Why turn a key? That's not how babies work.

B.) Did any students find creative abuses that wouldn't set off the counter?

C.) Here's a TVTropes page I found on the subject, @Animasta.

It's not a key you turn. It just fits into a slot in the back while you're cradling it. Also, the key is strapped to your wrist. Also, the doll could start crying any time, day or night. Also, I had this assignment coincide with my birthday.

Fuck that class forever.

@Hailinel said:

It's not a key you turn. It just fits into a slot in the back while you're cradling it.

You mean basic motion sensors haven't been implanted in these things?

In junior high, we absolutely did it.

When I was in grade 10 one of the classes used eggs but one broke and someone was allergic so they switched everyone to gingerbread men. The following year I was in the course and we had these robots. It would cry and it had sensors in it's bottle, pacifier and two diapers so you would have to switch out different things to get it to be quiet. The Teacher could even set the baby's sensitivity to be screaming every five minutes. We only had to use the robot for 24 hours though. The egg/cookie people had to do it for 2 weeks I think. This was a slack class that for the most part I graded my own work* and the teacher didn't notice.

*By "work" I mean putting a grade on my notes and showing it to the teacher when she would ask why she didn't have a grade from me. I'd show her the "work" with the grade and she'd enter it in the computer.

I never got to experience that special piece of high school Americana... thank Science.

@Video_Game_King said:

@Hailinel said:

It's not a key you turn. It just fits into a slot in the back while you're cradling it.

You mean basic motion sensors haven't been implanted in these things?

Yes, it had motion sensors. But the key is required to, I guess, make sure you're engaged in the act of "caring" for a plastic doll that doesn't really emulate a baby at all and only serves the purpose of annoying the shit out of the students forced to care for it.