Chuck

So they were much more desirable than the non-home ec babies, it turns out.

For sure.

Apparently, those eggs would get on custodians' nerves enough that they switch to flour or sugar.

which also had the added benefit of heft.

And I saw in some educational magazine, I can't remember, but they would put pantyhose of different colors to simulate multicultural skin tones over the flour or sugar.

And that sometimes if you forgot your kid, whether it was an egg or a sack of flour or something, in your locker, you might be forced to write a paper on child abuse or something like that.

So

The whole point was to just teach high school kids you don't want to have a baby at this period in your life.

Maybe ever.

Like if the class was hard enough, maybe they're like, I'm never having a kid.

But certainly not through my teen years.

That was the point.

Yeah.

Sure.

And I don't know if it worked or not, but it was a great attempt at the very least.

So by the middle of the 20th century, I think 1959, half of all American girls, half of all the girls in America were taking home ec courses in school.

And then just suddenly, it just dried up.

It wasn't like a faucet got turned off or a light switch was turned, but it...

Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us.

Started to go downhill pretty fast in about the early 60s.