Students from Adult Living classes had a big homework assignment this weekend: being parents.

Students in the classes will take turns parenting a realistic electronic baby that cries “whenever it wants” and tries to keep the baby’s needs met. Since there are only five babies available for the class, the assignment goes untill December, according to Alex Gavran, senior. Gavran is one of the students who did not take a baby home over the weekend.

“[My biggest concern] is probably having to bring the baby everywhere because you have to have it on you 24/7 since it can go off at any time and it’s so easy to get points taken away if it’s not by you,” Gavran said.

Senior, Kendal Charnota, knows all about the difficulties associated with the assignment. She  completed her parenting over the weekend, when she took home her baby, Eleanor.

Kendal Charnota, senior, mother of Eleanor

Q: Can you explain the assignment of caring for the baby?
A: I’m given this electronic baby and I have to take care of it over the weekend. It cries whenever it wants and I have to figure out why it’s crying, so I either feed it with a bottle, change its diaper, rock it, or pat its back to burp it.

Q: Does the baby interrupt your schedule?
A: Definitely. I was shopping with my sister yesterday and it cried in the middle of an aisle, so I had to stop and put it in the cart to change its diaper in front of everyone. I was at a different store and I had to hold it and feed it. My sleeping [was interrupted], too, because it wakes me up in the middle of the night.

Q: When you went out in public with the baby, how did people react?
A: A lot of people stared at me because I had it wrapped up in a blanket and I had a hat on it so if you just saw it from a glance, you definitely wouldn’t know it was fake, so a lot of people gave me weird looks or looked at me longer than normal.

Q: What did you learn from the assignment?
A: At first I didn’t think it was realistic because there is no way my baby would cry and need to be fed this many times within a few hours, but my mom said that was pretty accurate and babies do that. It definitely made me realize how hard it is because waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning to feed it for twenty minutes is not fun.

Q: What do you think the assignment is suppose to teach students?
A: Since it is an adult living class I think part of it is to prepare us for what we’re going to have to do when we are actually adults and having kids, but I think it’s also to prevent us from wanting to have a kid now. It didn’t make me not want to have a baby now, because I didn’t want to have a baby now to begin with. I would want to wait, obviously.