The Parent Project

Monday

           

Lauren doodled an extra love heart by the side of her name on the top of her workbook, taking extra care to make sure the tops were rounded and the end pointy. She added a couple of lines to make the heart bigger and had almost entirely switched off her brain when the sound of 15 crying babies permeated her eardrums. Instinctively, she cringed startled and threw her hands over her ears looking around at her irritated classmates in confusion as the classroom door opened.

Mr Hastings, followed by a small group of older kids swanned in looking very pleased with themselves as they carried 15 sobbing bundles of pink, blue and yellow into the room. One by one the students looked around, sharing confused glances at this new start to the day. Mr Hastings reached into his front pocket as the babies were placed gently on his desk. He pulled a small black remote from his pocket and pressed an even smaller button causing all of the children to go deathly silent.

"Good morning class," He said, pushing his thick framed glasses up his nose, "In case you hadn't gathered already, this week is baby week,"

"Baby week?" Joe Walker piped up from the back row. A couple of other students nodded their heads in confused agreement.

"Yes, Mr Walker, this week I will be partnering you with a member of the opposite sex unless you request otherwise and you will be tasked with looking after a child for an entire week," he paused, leaning back on his desk, "including the weekend."

A few of Lauren's classmates groaned and internally the short brunette was doing something similar. This was literally her worst nightmare. Her eldest cousin had had a baby recently and the thing was gross. Sure, Aurelia had her cute moments – she babbled a lot and when she held Lauren's finger tightly in her whole hand Lauren could understand the appeal of children. But when she pooped or ate or cried or wanted attention, she wanted to hand her back immediately and vow never to have kids of her own.

"This is worth thirty percent of your final grade for this class. It's going to assess your skill at working as part of a team, dexterity, maturity and a whole host of other things. At the end of the week you will be asked to submit an essay on your findings including what it was like to have another living being depend on you and how easy or difficult it was to work with your partner."

Lauren looked around the room and wondered who she'd be paired up with. There were maybe two or three boys she'd want to be put with and knowing her luck she wouldn't get any of them. Mr Hastings was now rambling about the internal technology within the plastic babies and how he would know exactly what had happened with the children, so there was no forgetting to feed them or dropping them on their head.

Her friend Darren was at the front of the class hastily scribbling notes, his eyes alight at the idea of looking after a baby for a week. He would be a good potential father, Lauren mused but their ex-boyfriend and girlfriend status made her keep looking. Joe Walker had gone back to doodling and not listening and it was clear he was not going to take this assignment seriously so Lauren ruled him out and panned around the remainder of the class. Denise and Meredith were huddled over their desks, sharing whispered conversation and Lauren assumed those two would take a baby together, so she ruled them out too. The two Brian's were alert and paying attention but if she had to guess, Lauren would say they were more worried about their grade than the baby. She needed someone sensible but not too serious, someone funny who would share the responsibility of looking after a fake baby for a week with her. That left very few boys.

"Is there anyone who would like to be paired up with someone of the same gender?" Mr Hastings asked bringing Lauren back to reality. Meredith and Denise raised their hands and Mr Hastings crossed them off his list, calling them up to grab a child. "The rest of you will be paired in alphabetical order."