If you can’t stand the wailing of your new baby and you don’t want to keep it, you can take it back to where you got it from. Well, you can if its the new doll invented by Richard Jurmain, an aerospace engineer who worked on the NASA space shuttle missions. The doll costs UKP150 and is being given to teenage children in the US who take it home for three days as a class assignment to give them a taste of what its really like to look after a baby, reports the Daily Mail. The doll is electronically – programmed to cry at random intervals every two to four hours, day or night. The only way it can be stopped is to hold it for about 20 minutes, the same amount of time it takes to feed a real baby. There is a variety of types of the doll, including different ethnic types, and an underweight premature doll that crys fretfully, simulating a baby who’s mother has used drugs during pregnancy. But, if you think you can ignore it and lock it in another room so you can’t hear it, you will be found out as this is no ordinary baby. It contains microprocessors to monitor negligent and abusive parents by recording how long it has taken you to attend to it after it starts crying and whether you mishandled it in any way by shaking or hitting it. The idea is not to teach the young moral values, but give them a taste of what sleepless nights are really like. It has been so successful that demand from family planning clinics and schools in 30 states has created a long waiting list for the doll. Students are all very keen to take it home, but return it with unusual promptness and relief when their three days are up.
