What Came First, The Grandmother Or The Egg?

I just became a grandmother. Pepita, as we affectionately call her, sleeps a lot, nestled in her bunny-bedecked bed. She is tiny, her head a perfect oval, as bald as an egg.

Maybe that’s because Pepita is an egg. My 13-year-old daughter just brought her home as part of Family Life’s attempt to prevent teenage parenthood. All eighth graders are charged with 24/7 responsibility for their hard-boiled infants. No overnight sojourns in the refrigerator next to the leftovers, no cracks or substitutions, no transformations into egg salad allowed. During P.E. or nights out on the town, a reputable eggsitter must be found. My daughter even has to read 20 minutes a day to Pepita. Unlike with real babies, no pages can be skipped, and the egg’s grandparents must vouch for this exemplary parental behavior in writing. Also unlike with real babies, the experiment with teen parenting lasts only five days, and no college tuition must be salted away.

I had heard about egg babies years earlier from my neighbor, whose kids are much older than mine. She described how all the eighth-grade girls fussed and cooed over their charges, spending hours planning play dates and making little outfits for them, while the eighth-grade boys pretty much left their children in their lockers for the week. Since I have a lot of friends my own age whose parenting styles parallel this gender divide with only modest variation, I was dubious about Family Life’s ability to transcend hard-wiring.

I am happy to report that my daughter is breaking gender stereotypes, tending more to the neglect side than the cooing side of the parenting spectrum. True, she had deigned to decorate Pepita with a marker-drawn bow, big blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. But soon after coming home with her new baby, she was trying to unload her on me.

“Can’t you just keep her in your purse?” she wailed as we prepared to go to a photography exhibit. “I don’t want to lug her around, and you’re bringing your purse anyway!”

“You’re the one who got pregnant!” I countered. “Put her in your little backpack. It will be just like a Snuggly.”

Pepita spent her first art opening crammed into a linty, airless pocket of her sulky mother’s sweatshirt. After that, she’s been pretty quiet. You might almost be tricked into thinking how easy it is to have a baby around the house (or locker). After all, eighth-graders have to read 20 minutes a night anyway just for English.

One thing’s for sure, although I don’t know that egg babies are what clinched the case: At 13, my daughter is way too young to become a mother.

And having only recently liberated my purse from carrying around snacks and extra socks for my own kids, I’m way too young to become a grandmother.