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Baby Box

Clean, efficient, and user-friendly child-rearing.
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Everyone knows that the easiest pets to keep are fish. The reason? Fish live in acquariums! We have adopted the success of the acquarium design (without the water, of course) to child-rearing for your parenting ease and comfort. The enivronment in the baby box is comfortable, self-sufficient, and self-cleaning. The baby needs to be fed? Press a button and a tube will dispense life-sustaining Gerber products into the baby's mouth. Diaper needs changing? Pull the lever and Baby Box will hose, scrub, and powder your baby, incinerate the old diaper and slap on a gleaming new pair of Pampers. Baby's crying? Flip the switch and an FDA approved sedative will be injected directly into your bundle of joy, sending him off to slumberland for hours. Raise your child through the most challenging years without breaking a sweat, getting your hands dirty, or even getting off your couch! Buy Baby Box today!!!
smatheis, May 06 2001

Did Skinner raise his second daughter in a box? http://www.snopes2....racture/skinner.htm
No; the box in question was merely an improvement on cribs, not a behavior modification experiment. And the daughter is fine. [jutta, May 06 2001]

Aircrib (Image) http://www.coedu.us...mages/babyinbox.jpg
As published in the "Ladies' Home Journal" article in October 1945. [jutta, May 06 2001]

[link]






       Does it come in a large size - I'd like to buy one for myself.
lubbit, May 06 2001
  

       The adult version comes with beer, a sex doll, and ESPN.
smatheis, May 06 2001
  

       Put a walker on one side and a wheel on the other, and granny can babysit the little hedonist.
reensure, May 06 2001
  

       Baked. Take a Psych class and study Burrhus Frederic Skinner (B.F. to his friends). You can learn all about the Skinner Box, and the controversial crib he made for a baby..... you can even learn about stimulus-response and operant conditioning.....   

       "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well informed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select ----doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant, chief; and yes, even beggar man or thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors"
Susen, May 06 2001
  

       If your baby is such a "bundle of joy" why not take care of it yourself? Or just convert your baby into a goldfish in the age-old Monty Python tradition. Arms and legs off, bit of gold paint, no problem.

Also: what the heck is a gerber and what kind of products do people make from gerbers?
sirrobin, May 07 2001
  

       You may end up with a very alienated human, ie a Boxing Baby, who will revolt and box your ears for you.
Dog Ed, May 07 2001
  

       <point of information> Gerbers is the top selling brand of baby food here in the states.   

       Skinner's experiments showed that when all personal "touch" was removed from the young, that they would then cling to anything ----such as a towel---for some type of soft contact. I believe (it's been a while since I did my Psych degree) that Skinner had his young daughter very much raised in such an environment (very little human contact).   

       sirrobin is right.....smatheis should stick to goldfish.
Susen, May 07 2001, last modified May 11 2001
  

       The bit about deprivation experiments on Skinner's daughter is just an urban legend. See link.   

       Raising a child is the hardest (and hopefully most rewarding) thing people do. Although the idea is of course exaggerating, Skinner shows that there is plenty of room for improvement without coming anywhere near the "not getting your hands dirty" stage. If it frees an overwhelmed parent to spend a few more minutes playing with the baby rather than maintaining it - bring on the box!
jutta, May 07 2001
  

       Okay... it appears that both Sirrobin and Susen missed the REALLY OBVIOUS HUMOUR involved in the Baby Box idea. Perhaps I should have affixed "JUST KIDDING" at the end to avoid offending anyone's precious sensibilities. CHRIST.
smatheis, May 11 2001
  

       It's not that I was that offended....but that I love children ....I had three for breakfast....
Susen, May 11 2001, last modified May 12 2001
  

       OK, Waugsqueke, you got me. This was a sincere posting for a product I currently have in production. I've sold over 200 already. Give me a break.   

       Let's recap the ideas we have in this section already. A cattle grid to be installed for keeping children in a specified area. Handcuffs to be applied around the knees of toddlers. Tranquilizers and sedatives for children. These postings, as well as the current one, were humourous in there intent. Forgive me if my posting was taken in any other light, but this should be perfectly obvious to people reading this website, as well as from the tone of the posting itself. It really does take a special kind of stupid to take such a posting seriously.   

       Then again, if others frequenting this site are born-again Christians like yourself, Waugsqueke, this may explain the lacking sense of humour.
smatheis, May 13 2001
  

       The halfbakery is built on the willingness of its users to entertain absurd ideas. This would not work if, at the slightest hint of impractibility, we'd all nod our heads and say, "obviously, this person is kidding. Ha, ha, what a joker."   

       Jokes without foundation in reality are boring. What's much more interesting is to look for similar things in reality, motivations, past inventions people have tried, stories people have written that drag that exaggerated idea screaming and clawing back into reality. Because reality is much bigger, weirder, and more interesting than any fiction you can come up with.   

       That's what Susen has done. Given your ha-ha piece, she's been reminded of a bit of (subsequently misinterpreted) reality of the 50ies in America, and has elevated your piece to a commentary on something real, making it much more interesting.   

       This frequently happens here (there are lots of ideas posted as absurd that turn out to have existed in reality at some time or other). Maybe part of a sense of humor should be an appreciation of just how easily these walls break down.
jutta, May 14 2001
  

       No way. What about love? What about cuddling and playing with the little cutie? Children need affection, and they can't get that from this gadget you proopse. Bad idea!
Sparki, Aug 10 2001
  
      
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