Case of the Resident Baby

Until his staff tipped him off last week, Superintendent Roman Haremski of the Illinois State Child Welfare Division had thought the subject was closed. On two occasions, Miss Ruth Schmalhausen, supervisor of home management studies at Eastern Illinois Stat College in Charleston, had asked him to find her a real live baby for her home economics majors to care for; but each time, appalled at the idea, Haremski had said no. Now it turned out that Miss Schmalhausen had been able to find a baby on her own. By last week psychologists and educators all over the state were furiously debating the case of six-month-old David North.

David is actually the second "resident baby" to have lived at Eastern Illinois' $90,000 home management building. The son of an unwed mother who cannot yet support him, he arrived at the college in October, since then has been the center of attraction for twelve home economics majors. Every ten days, he gets a new "mother" who feeds him, bathes him, washes out his diapers. Between 3 and 5:30 p.m., however, all his mothers gather to play with him. Then, at 6:30 an exhausted little David is put to bed.

To Miss Schmalhausen, all this is "very worthwhile": it not only gives her girls "practical experience," but it is good for David too. Superintendent Haremski, however, thinks otherwise. "It is not a normal family setting," said he. "There are just too many persons involved in the handling of that child." Heaven only knows, added the superintendent, how many neuroses little David might develop. Other officials seemed to agree. "Imagine." cried Mrs. Babette Penner, director of the Women's Services Division of United Charities, "what anxieties there are in a child who is given a bottle in twelve or more pairs of arms." Added Miss Ethel Verry, director of the Chicago Child Care Society: "It's ridiculous. This baby should have careful, individual plans made for it right now. It's already in an insecure position." Last week Superintendent Haremski announced that he was ordering an investigation. Under state law, said he, "any welfare agency or family home that accepts the care of a child has to be licensed.

Acting without a license . . . may cause a criminal prosecution." But Miss Schmalhausen had no intention of giving in. "I'm as well qualified as any nursing home. I'll fight to the last inch if they try to take this baby away from me." Meanwhile, as the experts wrangled, little David went right on risking future neuroses, and his assorted mothers went right on gaining some worthwhile "practical experience."

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