Washington teen fakes pregnancy as school project

[proud2BlibKansan]

TOPPENISH, Wash. - A high school student who faked her pregnancy for six months as a social experiment stunned a student assembly this week by taking off the belly bundle.

Only a handful of people knew that 17-year-old Gaby Rodriguez wasn't really pregnant, including her mother, boyfriend and the principal, according to the Yakima Herald-Republic.

They helped keep the secret from some of her siblings and her boyfriend's family and students and teachers, all as part of a senior project on stereotyping.

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"In essence, she gave up her senior year," said Principal Trevor Greene. "She sacrificed her senior year to find out what it would be like to be a potential teen mom."


Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2011/04/22/1818759/washington-teen-fakes-pregnancy.html#ixzz1KJFEdVVA

[ddeclue]

1. Umm.. why?

Sounds like a bad idea to me.

I don't need to hit my thumb with a hammer to know it's gonna hurt.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Probably because you've hit your thumb with a hammer before.

For this girl and others, they haven't got a clue because they haven't gone through it.

I don't know if it's a good idea or a bad one, but I'm glad she cleared it with parent and admin.

I wonder if she kept up with her other studies, I sure hope so.

:patriot:

[ddeclue]

3. I know that if I shoot myself in my foot that's gonna hurt too even thought I've never done it.

Again I don't see the point in making yourself unnecessarily miserable when you already know the outcome.

[LisaL]

5. Yea, exactly.

WTF was she trying to prove?

[LisaL]

4. She cleared it with her family, but not her boyfriends family.

So I guess all this time they were expecting he was going to become a daddy.
I really don't see what the point of her "social experiment" was.

[tammywammy]

7. She told her boyfriend, just not his family. n/t

[LisaL]

9. And that makes it o'key exactly how?

His parents must have believed all this time he was going to be a daddy.

[tammywammy]

10. So? I guess I don't see why that would matter.

The boyfriend knew she wasn't pregnant. The boyfriend's an adult (20), so I don't see why it would matter about his parents.

[LisaL]

11. So, if they are expecting him to be a daddy for months, and

feeling whatever emotions they are feeling, only to be told it was a hoax, that doesn't matter?

[tammywammy]

13. No more so than all her friends that thought the same.

Or her brothers. Or anyone else.

[Pithlet]

17. That was what appalled me the most.

Here they were thinking for 6 months that they were going to be grandparents. They thought it was going to be a little boy. They should have been let in on it. Awful.

[Pithlet]

19. I'm with you.

I don't get the point, either. And it seems unethical, to boot. Her advisers and mentors who let her go through with it are idiots, IMO.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Did you read the link? It's actually pretty interesting.

She wanted to prove that girls were treated differently when they were pregnant. And she pretty much proved that.

[LisaL]

8. She proved it? LOL.

It's like proving that water is wet.

[bluestateguy]

12. Sounds very unethical to me

Universities and think tanks have boards that evaluate these research project proposals, especially if they raise ethical, moral or conflict of interest issues. No way this would pass muster.

[wellstone dem]

14. It reminds me of "Black Like Me"

from in the early 70s or late 60s where a white person passes for black. The person knew it they would learn hard lessons, but learned that they didn't realize how hard the lessons would be, and also learned the lessons were different than expected. I think this is interesting and great. It may have opened some teachers eyes. Good for her.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. Did that guy die?

I heard years ago he caught some disease from the chemicals he used to make himself black?

I read that book when I was about 12 years old and it just haunted me.

[saras]

15. Bad experimental design

She really has no idea what it would be like to be a potential teen mom. She learned, at best, how some people would treat her if they thought she was a potential mother, while she was having the experience of hoaxing all these people. However she puts that together in her head, it doesn't have a lot to do with actually carrying something around inside oneself that is becoming a human being, with the expectation, 24-7, that she will be eventually be responsible for this person for some twenty years or more.

Not to mention the other students, some of whom may be creeped out for years at such a long drawn-out fraud in their midst.

I thought we got over this sort of crap when we quit dosing people.

[jtuck004]

16. How?

Her comment was

"I'm fighting against those stereotypes and rumors because the reality is I'm not pregnant."

How, exactly, did she confront stereotypes. She made public how people look at, talk about, and treat someone who is pregnant, as if there aren't a few thousand examples of that out there. She made it easy to see that masquerading like someone you are not can fool people. She didn't go out for track or join the swimming team to prove that women are stronger than people might think, and even the principal said she gave up exactly what any other pregnant woman would give up.

She did challenge the idea that Halloween can only last one night, but what did she do to fight against sterotypes?

[LisaL]

18. I have no clue how she was fighting against the stereotypes either.

This whole "social experiment" makes no sense to me whatsoever. And never mind that for months she mislead a whole bunch of people, including her boyfriend's parents who were expecting a grandson.