Lisa Scott
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (June 22/05) - A five-pound bag of flour cradled gently in your arms becomes heavy after a while, especially when you're trundling from class to class.

Add changing the bag's diaper five times a day, feeding and burping it and protecting it from harm's way.

The baby-substitute may not cry like a real infant, but the work entailed convinced Grade 8 students Justin Couch and Julie Hintz to hold off on parenting for a while.

Students in Lynn Lalonde's William McDonald school family life class carried the flour sacks, complete with names and wrapped in blankets, for two days as part of a parenting project.

Shuffling baby Natalie Ann with one arm and his binder with another, mock-father Couch, 14, was tired as the project ended.

He was on alert mode the entire time, protecting his baby from being hit, which would have cost him a loss of 10 points, or lost, which could dock him and his "wife" Julie Hintz 40 points.

"My friends wanted to play football with it," he said.

Both students have dreamt of parenthood and plan on having kids, though that day is far off, they said.

"You really have to want to have a baby before you have one, because it's a lot of work, even if it's a sack of flour," said a wise Hintz.

Uncle to five

Couch is already an uncle to five and a great uncle to two, so he knows that children cost more money than Natalie Ann, and they can't sleep at his feet like she did on his night to care for her.

Lalonde chose the hands-on project to spur on chatter about parenting and pregnancy, to get it out of the closet. "They learn that it's not easy. Some of them tell me that it showed them it's a big responsibility," she said after all the babies were turned in, to start a new life as cookies or muffins.

This was the first time Lalonde has tried the project and not the last, though next year she's getting tougher.

She's switching to 10 lb bags, a more realistic weight for newborns these days, she says.