Rob:  Out of wedlock births have jumped dramatically in the past decade.  Of all the babies born, here in Oklahoma, four out of every ten, are to a single mother; and of those, thirty-five percent live in poverty, with those costs often being passed on to the rest of us.  A new study indicates unmarried child-bearing, along with divorce, costs Oklahoma taxpayers upwards of four hundred million dollars a year.  Now bringing all those numbers down is the goal of some new and innovative programs in our schools.  As our Brian Bendele reports, students are getting some real-time insight into the stresses of parenthood.
Brian:  It’s funny now, but after these students take a real-care baby home, and realize they can’t just reset it to make it quit crying, well, being a parent becomes a whole new ballgame.
Kate Lott:  They are so anxious to take the baby, because it’s such a novelty.  I have my students take babies over the weekend; so they pick the baby up from me Friday afternoon and they are responsible for that child’s care 24 hours a day until they bring them back to me on Monday morning.  And a lot of times, kids beat me to school.  They are so ready to give that baby up; or, they come in school late; you know, they’re three hours late, because baby kept them up all night, or, you know,  they couldn’t catch the bus because the baby was crying, or it needed to be changed  as they were trying to get ready for school.
Brian:  Kate Lott is a family and consumer science teacher at Northwest Classen High School and says while the exercise is only a simulation, the stats are real.  Oklahoma ranks 8th in the nation for teen births; and of the 77 counties, 64 have rates higher than the national average of girls ages 15 to 19.
Lott:  We are, I think, facing an epidemic of teenage pregnancy.  I mean it is nothing really new, but it seems like there’s something in the water.  There is a lot of teen pregnancies right now in our school, and in others around our area.
Brian:  In 2006 Oklahoma County teenagers recorded more than 1,500 live births.  Senior Javier Sanchez says he is taking the course because he just became a father.
Javier Sanchez:  I didn’t think that I would have a baby this year, because I have my own he is 41/2 months.
Brian:  Javier says the course is teaching him a lot of skills he didn’t think he would need to know.
Sanchez:  I never thought I would see myself, like right now, like father of four months.  I thought it would be kind of easy, but at the same time, it’s real hard.  Your sleep gets cut down, responsibilities go up.  You’ve got no money.  Or you’ve got money, but it all goes towards the baby.
Brian:  Something Lott says many students don’t realize, until they sit down as a class, and figure out the expense.
Lott:  And that’s an eye opener for a lot of kids too.  You know, they think that I’m going to have this baby, it’s going to be no big deal.  They don’t realize they need to come up with about 7,000 dollars, if they don’t have medical insurance.
Brian:  After crunching the numbers and taking care of crying babies in the middle of the night, both sophomores, Ashley and Tanasha, agree they are not ready for a child of their own.
Ashely Powdrill:  I should go to college, then grad school; then maybe be a mom.
Tanasha Tyler:  Especially being young, you know, you still want to have fun, and you can’t do a lot of that, when you have a child.
Brian:  A realization, only to be found by experiencing a real-life scenario, without the life-long commitment.