Road Apples
April 20, 2009


Don't put all your eggs and babies in one basket

By Tim Sanders

Back in my callow youth, when the earth was still cool and the sleek, predatory Ricardos stalked the ungainly, woolly Mertzes across the frozen tundra, we youngsters knew little or nothing about human reproduction and child care. If we'd had middle schools back then, things would have been different. But we had no middle schools, only primitive educational institutions called junior high schools, which served mainly as holding facilities.

We had a class in junior high called Home and Family Living. This class was aimed at warning teenagers that their bodies would soon become gurgling cauldrons of hormones which, when unleashed, would pose a danger to society. Science had recently discovered that these toxic hormones, when combined with adult beverages and the back seats of Fords, could result in what would eventually become MORE TEENAGERS. This, of course, was why that Home and Family Living class encouraged us to spend more time at home with our families, rather than in the back seats of Mustangs with individuals we'd just met at some dance at a gymnasium full of strange teenagers with much lower moral standards than our own. I don't remember much of what was taught in that class, except something or other about fallopian tubes, testosterone, self-control, and leaving the toilet lid down for the benefit of other family members. I'm sure there wasn't much emphasis on how to care for babies. As long as we followed the rules, and got at least a C in the class, we were confident we wouldn't have to worry about that.

But, as you've probably already guessed, the old Home and Family Living class wasn't always an effective deterrent. On occasion, even the most morally upstanding teenagers in my small town ran amok and made babies, with little or no real plans about what they would do with them after they made them. In those days I certainly had no interest in making a baby myself, but I'll admit to more than a passing fascination with the process. I had a sneaking suspicion that the Home and Family Living class had sort of skimmed over a lot of the really good stuff. Scientifically speaking, of course.

Which brings us to an interesting caption in last week's Post. It reads as follows:


“Students in 7th grade science in Centre Middle School recently studied reproduction and child development. Teacher Cynthia Welsh assigned students the duty of taking care of an uncooked egg for one week. The project was to teach about the care of babies and the time it takes to care for them. The students received an egg and then spent time decorating it with googley eyes, yarn hair, and drawings of other facial features. Each student also had to create a carrier for their egg. The students were also responsible for keeping a journal ... ”


Above the caption is a photo of a lovely young seventh-grader holding her egg and her egg carrier. You can tell by looking at her that she is already wiser than we oldsters were at her age. She knows about babies and about all the care they require. She has an egg.

Of course we had eggs when we were kids, but back then we were not familiar with the egg-as-a-baby concept. Our teachers knew better than to give uncooked eggs to a bunch of seventh graders who had not yet evolved past the knuckle-dragging stage. At best it would have been an invitation to derision, and at worst an invitation to a very messy egg fight.

Today's seventh graders are much more evolved than we were. And I am much more evolved, now, too. I can see the obvious similarities between a baby and an egg:


Uncooked eggs are fragile, just like babies. Uncooked eggs are soft and runny on the inside, just like babies. Eggs are round, and so are some babies. People decorate both eggs and babies for Easter, although we do not recommend the “googley eyes” and “yarn hair” look for most babies. Both eggs and babies can make a nasty mess if you squeeze them too hard. You can carry an egg and a baby, but not both at the same time, in a basket. You can keep a journal about an egg. You can also keep a journal about a baby, although neither journal will be very interesting. If you set a raw egg on its end and spin it, it will wobble. The same is true of a baby. Neither an egg nor a baby understands the word “NO!” Both an egg and a baby will wake you up at least three times every single night, squalling–except for the egg.


Unfortunately, when I was a seventh grader, I was not sophisticated enough to weigh those obvious similarities when contemplating the complex nature of the egg. I would have found the whole egg/baby idea funny, and if I hadn't tossed my “baby” at one of my buddies during lunch hour, I'd most certainly have stuck him in the refrigerator when I tired of carrying him around. By which I mean my egg, not my buddy. My egg might have been a chilly baby, but he certainly wouldn't have been spoiled.

On the other hand, given the rising price of eggs, Mrs. Welsh might want to supply future science classes with a cheaper, yet more challenging baby substitute. If you've ever heard a cat complaining at night outside your window, you already know that a cat is more closely related to a baby than is an egg. A cat is loud, irrational, and demanding. And even better, you can purchase two burlap bags full of cats at Trade Day for less than you'd pay for a dozen eggs. And take my word for it, once those seventh graders mastered the art of submersing Sylvester in the tub, scrubbing him all squeaky clean, and then powdering his furry little hindquarters, there's nothing a baby could throw at them that they couldn't handle.

Not even an egg.