Child’s Play

For the past week, the Year 10s have taken part in the yearly Flour Baby tradition, where, during the fourth term, the students are paired up to take care of a ‘Flour Baby’ for a week. These ‘babies’ are made out of bags of flour that are then wrapped in blankets and hats, given a drawn-on face and, of course, a name. The Flour Babies have to be looked after at all times by the ‘parents’, who have to take their child wherever they go and to confirm this, teachers even have to sign a sheet stating that the parents are caring for their babies. These ‘children’ also have to go home with the students every day, even over the weekend.

Although these ‘babies’ are undeniably physically heavy, there is a great weight of reponsibility that was resting on the Year 10s’ shoulders. Having to constantly be responsible for a helpless sack of flour initially seemed like child’s play, but after a few days, or hours, you begin to truly realise how difficult it is to look after a ‘baby’. This responsibility for looking after bag of flour is a, fairly obvious, link to the responsibilty of having to look after an actual baby at such a young age. The aim of this popular student experiment is to show teenagers how having a child so young could cause massive changes in their life; if it is that hard to look after a sack of flour, how much harder would it be to nurture an actual child? Attempting to juggle school work, extra murals, social commitments and general sanity is difficult enough and it would be even harder to do so with a baby, as the year 10s have learned.

The Year 10s seemed this task in their stride, with practically no incidents of parents committing child neglect or any broken flour babies (unlike previous years). Well done for staying strong until the end, Year 10s!

-Photos taken by Gabriella, article written by Rachel