Baby Borrowers

I came across information on the show “Baby Borrowers” on Jill Stanek’s blog – a site which, by the way, I highly recommend. I don’t know how she keeps up on all of this stuff! She’s amazing. “The ‘Baby Borrowers’ will be a “social experiment” involving 5 teenage couples who play round-the-clock parents and caretakers for 3 days each to a baby, toddler, pre-teen with pet, teenager, and senior citizen (“some with health issues”) in succession.” Female teens wear “empathy bellies” to prepare them for the arrival of their “babies”. As Jill states, and I completely agree, the purpose of the show is to, “scare teens from pregnancy, but not sex.” As a mother of two I also strongly concur that, “wearing an empathy belly only stilts one’s posture; it does not for a fraction of time emulate the 9 month bonding experience between mother and preborn child.” And I would add that the birth process itself bonds a mother to her baby in a way that cannot be replicated. A mother will sacrifice for her baby in a way that no teenager who is borrowing a baby could ever understand. (That’s not to say that adoptive parents cannot bond with their adopted children. I would venture to say that the strong desire they have for a baby creates a bond similar to birthing a baby.) Jill also brings up this point: what about the possible harm done to the babies!? They are separated from their mothers for three days! And I have to ask, who would, in their right mind, allow inexperienced teenage strangers to keep their baby for three days!? Not me!