Egg Sitting



American Kids, as part of their health ed class, often have to take care of an egg for a while and treat it like a child. If the egg is broken at the end, or they don't have somebody always looking after it, they will fail. Curiously, this is never run by other teachers at the school, who are less than sympathetic when it interrupts their classes. Usually, the kids are paired for the assignment, but sometimes each individual kid has their own egg.

Usually, the kids are totally irresponsible, and will either play catch with the egg, fight over it, lose it among several hundred other eggs, or otherwise risk flunking. Hilarity Ensues. Often, when the students are paired, the main character will have to work together with someone he or she doesn't like -- or may have another kind of tension with -- to get themselves out of the mess they put themselves in.

Often the egg breaks and they replace it with another one, only to be found out because the teacher had secretly placed a pencil mark on the egg.

This trope is also semi-common with teenaged superheroes, who must then try to fufill the assignment while keeping up with their crime-fighting.

This is something that Real Life high schools actually do to discourage students from having unprotected sex, the moral being: "Look at what a pain it is to take care of a kid at your age."

In the real world, the eggs have mostly been displaced by lifelike dolls, equipped with features to make them even more annoying, like a battery-powered chip which makes the baby scream. Only some Egg Sitting episodes have made the switch. Occasionally a third option is used. A bag of flour or sugar, for instance, which more properly imitates the weight of a baby.

Note that this is a very specific trope to the US (and perhaps Canada) and when it is encountered by others in American-made media, a common response is to think it an example of Aluminium Christmas Trees.

Subtrope of Parents for a Day. Compare Egg McGuffin, the more literal version.

Anime and Manga

 * Revolutionary Girl Utena has Nanami taking care of an egg for an episode on her own initiative, but she thinks she laid it and gets a bit upset whenever anyone mentions omelettes or similar foods.
 * Futaba Kun Change has a similar chapter, but it's a misunderstanding arising from the main character's Jerkass sister having hard-boiled eggs in his bed as a midnight snack and leaving one there.

Comic Books
"Kitty Pryde: "
 * Life-like dolls instead of egg example: Happened during the "Death of a Goblin" storyline in Ultimate Spider-Man, with Peter awkwardly paired up with X-Girlfriend Kitty Pryde. Pun intended.
 * And then when she got fed up and passed it on to him, he ended up

Fanfiction

 * "Enfant Terrible" follows Monet of Generation X as she has to deal with one of the electronic doll sort.

Film

 * In Garage Days, Joe babysits a watermelon ("Melly") to prove to his girlfriend he can have a kid. When Melly gets "killed" (hit by a car, no less) he becomes distraught and almost suicidal. I think it might've been the drugs.
 * In License To Wed, the couple being tested by Robin Williams's character are given a pair of extremely disturbing baby dolls. In addition to being equipped to scream and cry (very loudly), they are also capable of various other functions, including... You know what, I'm not going there.
 * Otis in Milo and Otis is charged with caring for a chicken egg for a few hours and takes the role very seriously, watching the egg intently. It hatches on his watch and the new chick immediately assumes Otis is its mother.

Literature

 * Long before this trope developed, the C.M. Kornbluth story "The Education of Tigress McArdle" (1957), set Exty Years From Now, has a robot Toddler that works like this for adults as part of the Parental Qualifications Program
 * Flour Babies is based entirely around this trope, as a boy looks after a bag of flour and discovers the truth about his parents.
 * Eve Bunting's Our Sixth Grade Sugar Babies, likewise, is a book whose plot is based solely on this trope.
 * In Holly Black's Valiant, Ruth and Val take care of a flour sack together, which prompts Jen to call them lesbians.
 * Unfortunately,
 * In Lisi Harrisons The Clique, Claire's class takes care of synthetic babies; the data can later be uploaded to the teacher's computer.
 * In The Girl Talk series, they had an Egg-sitting episode, mostly for a "Not So Different" set up between Zek and a quiet pianist. Though it's notable for the fact the Alpha Bitch tried to cheat by boiling hers, and how a guy accidentally sat on his.
 * In Nothing But Trouble Trouble Trouble, the entire plot centers around the narrator and her friend being assigned to care for either a pet or an egg for the weekend and write it all down. First they try to kidnap a rich, bratty neighbor's two nasty cats, then are forced to return them and use the eggs. Then their eggs break, so they quickly purchase a mouse to use. And then that gets loose. Keep in mind that all of this is kept entirely secret, owing to the fact that the narrator's younger sister is very allergic to all pets.
 * Lifelike doll variant: In the Adrian Mole series, Adrian rents one of these dolls for his sister Rosie
 * Happened in a fairly good Babysitters Club book, Mary Anne + Too Many Babies.
 * The Sweet Valley Twins book The Middle School Gets Married used this plot.
 * The point of Horton Hatches An Egg. A lazy bird doesn't want to spend her time sitting on her egg, so she cons Horton the elephant into doing it for her while she goofs off. Despite much teasing from his friends and being caught by hunters, Horton doesn't budge and eventually

Live Action TV

 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Bad Eggs": Xander cheats by boiling his egg so it won't break. Lucky for him, because the eggs turn out to host demon parasites.
 * He was also going to eat his egg, before he learned it had a demon parasite in it.
 * Degrassi Junior High, "Eggbert": Spike and Shane are partners -- appropriately enough, since he got her pregnant in a previous episode. The project helps bring out the worst in the entire cast.
 * Degrassi the Next Generation, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For": When Danny discovers that his sister is pregnant, he blackmails her boyfriend into helping him take care of the doll ("you need to learn this anyway"). It ends, of course, with the doll getting smashed in public.
 * Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, "Bathrooms and Project Partners": Loomer steals the doll from Ned and Cookie, and threatens to send it back piece by piece if they don't do what he wants. Ned gleefully points out that they can just wait for Loomer to send all the pieces back, then put the doll together again. But their teacher moves the end of the project forward, before the doll's head is returned ....
 * It should be noted that Ned takes a "Life Science" Class meaning he and Cookie have to raise a doll the whole semester
 * On That 70s Show, Jackie uses this as a test for Kelso. The egg is broken and replaced, but he manages to explain away the missing pencil mark as having given it a bath.
 * Although this is usually played with high school age characters, (are) adult examples have popped up, usually among characters who doubt their abilities as parents (sometimes with good reason): Frasier used the trope in one episode, when Niles adopts a sack of flour to see if he is ready to become a dad. The humor comes in that the sack is singed, taped, glued, and otherwise maimed from a series of events that take place offscreen and are highly unlikely for babies to encounter (as Niles put it, "A real baby would have cried before bursting into flames."). Ultimately, the sack was chewed up by the dog and Niles treats the situation as if he had actually lost the child. He also had a dream where somebody kidnapped it and started sending him muffins in the mail.
 * Also used with adults on Las Vegas, where egg-sitting is a homework assignment for a couple's parenting class. The father-to-be's egg gets broken in his jacket pocket, while the expectant mother dresses hers up more like a pet chihuahua than a child. She also foists eggs off on other casino staff who aren't yet parents, so they can "share the life lesson".
 * So did Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip: The simulation doll ends up being decapitated by a "safe" prop guillotine, then put back together (...mostly) by the prop department of the Show Within a Show.
 * Flash Forward: The main character, Tucker, has to take care of an electronic baby and babysit a live child at the same time. He manages to take care of the living kid, but the electronic baby is broken in an accident, which he tries to repair by using parts from movie monster kits that he collects.
 * 8 Simple Rules used the 'Bag of flour' version: Everyone uses the flour for baking, leaving the "baby" deflated.
 * Hannah Montana: Oliver bonds with his partner while caring for a sack of flour and they start dating, only for him to discover they have nothing in common when the assignment is over.
 * Head of the Class: Standard hijinks ensue, including one student losing his egg at a Star Trek convention.
 * Lucy and her boyfriend get this assignment on 7th Heaven. When something happens to their egg, Ruthie advises them to write that they aren't ready to be parents, which is the whole point of the assignment, anyway.
 * An episode of A Different World had this once, where one of the characters was obsessing over the egg as if it actually WAS her child.
 * In The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Maddie and London do this with a baby doll.
 * Parodied, like every other high-school trope, on Strangers with Candy, where a teacher announces that "in order for you to learn what it's like to take care of a ten-pound 'baby,' each of you will be taking care of... a ten-pound baby." Sure enough, each pair of students is assigned a live child. Jerri and her friend Tammi quickly fall into the roles of "abusive husband" and "doormat housewife" repesctively, and the baby is spectacularly neglected in the process.
 * Castle: Alexis and her friend Paige do this with an egg ('Feggin'), asking Castle to egg-sit while she and the friend go to a party. Surprisingly, both Castle and Beckett manage to keep the egg safe. However,
 * Something similar in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Instead of being parents, they simulated marriage. Libby naturally snaps Harvey up as her partner, and Sabrina is "stuck" with a nerdy guy.
 * On The Middle, Axel ends up dismantling the doll to get it to stop.
 * Veronica Mars has to "raise" a baby-like doll with her boyfriend Duncan for a sex-ed class. It's not clear if they fail or succeed, but Veronica definitely isn't shown to be a reliable parent. Also, the doll serves as Foreshadowing for
 * In one episode of Charmed, Paige rents a doll for expectant parents Piper and Leo to care for to see what it will be like to raise a child while constantly battling demons. Hilarity Ensues when the Demon of the Week shows up and the doll predictably doesn't survive in one piece.
 * How to Be Indie: The class gets an egg sitting assignment in "How to Get Gotten". Indie tries to dodge the assignement by volunteering to escort a seventh grader who is being trialed in the eighth grade for a week instead.
 * An adult example occurs in an episode of Kenny vs. Spenny. Each is given a lifelike doll that requires attention and records how observant the parent is. Kenny purposely mistreats and eventually “kills” his doll and then switches it with Spenny’s doll.

Web Comics

 * The "It Could Still Make a Cake" strip in Ctrl+Alt+Del manages this whole trope in four panels. (There's also discussion of egg-sitting in The Rant.)
 * A Skewed Paradise has this as on ongoing plotline.

Western Animation
"Max: Here's the bio and civics.
 * South Park, "Follow that Egg!": In order to spite her former lover, Mr. Slave, Ms. Garrison puts Stan and Kyle together for egg-sitting, expecting them to break their egg -- and thus provide evidence against the legalization of gay marriage. When they don't break it, she hires a hit man to kill the egg.
 * Danny Phantom has Danny (secretly a half ghost) and Valerie, a fellow student, (secretly The Hunter, trying to capture Danny) take care of a microchipped sack of flour that can simulate crying and defecation. Tucker had the idea of "babysitting" other student's projects for money, but his mother used all the flour for cooking, forcing him to pay everyone back with interest.
 * Similarly, in O'Grady, Kevin (the High School Hustler and Humphrey) babysits everybody else's dolls for money. Abby discovers that he's been reprogramming the dolls' memory chips to record that everything is fine. She responds by reprogramming them to scream twenty-four hours a day.
 * Batman Beyond: The egg is actually actual-baby-sized and is AI-enabled to cry, get hungry and respond like a real kid. Terry is unable to get anyone to babysit his electronic egg, forcing him to take it along crime-fighting. Not only does Hilarity Ensues, he ends up getting the highest grade in the class, as only his egg was properly "stimulated" (it had the most fun). The Teacher says this is a sign that Terry is excellent father material, which pleases his girlfriend. (Notably, this is the episode of the series that won an Emmy, and the commentary on the DVD explains that this was intentional--it's a funny episode in a serious series deliberately as award bait.)
 * Also an interesting take happens with one couple:

Nelson: Thanks, hon. What about the math?

Max: It's coming, keep your shirt on.

Terry: I get it. You're doing his work for him so you don't have to take care of the baby.

Max: We opted for the traditional marriage: one breadwinner, one homemaker.

Nelson: Beats algebra."


 * Beavis and Butthead get a bag of sugar; by the end of the episode, it's in the teacher's gas tank.
 * A Kim Possible episode plays on this (and a really bad Meaningful Name joke/pun). Ron is entrusted with a sack of flour, which he's repeatedly forced to replace after a series of slapsticky mishaps. While he lavishes attention on "Sacky I" through "Sacky MCMXXXIIII", he ignores and deplores his new adopted baby sister Hana, whose name happens to mean "flower" in Japanese.
 * Made even funnier as Ron and Terry/Batman (above) are voiced by the same person...
 * Hey Arnold: Arnold and Helga get paired together and spend the entire assignment arguing, losing the egg in the process twice. The second time they find it, they put aside their differences to work together -- and then the egg hatches into a baby chick.
 * The progress of the other students are also followed. Harold and Rhonda are paired together, for example, and she paints their egg to look like it has a baby's face and hair. She leaves to go shopping and Harold, who is apparently channeling Cronos at the time, gets very hungry and eats it. They ultimately turn in the egg shell, taped together.
 * Drawn Together subverted this by giving Toot an actual baby (from Nicaragua) for the experiment.
 * Semi-subverted on My Gym Partner's a Monkey - The students of Charles Darwin Middle School are given eggs to take care of. The eggs hatch into exotic bird chicks which must then be cared for.
 * Hercules The Animated Series has the students taking care of eggs as part of their project. Despite his clumsiness and tendency to trip over his own feet and cause chaos and destruction everywhere, Hercules kept his egg safe. Cassandra just went ahead and cooked and eat her egg in front of everyone else.
 * Carl Squared does it with sophisticated robot babies, including a microchip that records how well the students do at 'parenting'. Carl accidentally decapitates his.
 * Detention: The "babies" are water balloons, each of which has a device that cries at random and will lock into the 'on' position if the parent doesn't switch it off in time. The guys are either reckless with their babies or completely absent, so the girls add water to the balloons, saddling the guys with the extra-unwieldy babies. All the guys except Emmitt cause some accidental mayhem during a field trip, dropping their balloons in the process, so he and Shareena are the only ones that escape having to do the project again.
 * The Penguins of Madagascar had an episode where the gang found an egg and tried to care for it until it hatched. Only Private had any real sense of responsibility, putting the little thing in danger. Eventually, the baby was returned to its rightful mother.
 * The duckling they hatched showed he had somehow absorbed the traits of the penguins while they were taking care of it.
 * An episode of American Dragon Jake Long had Jake trying to protect a griffin's egg from the Huntsman and Huntsgirl, with Fu Dog's help.
 * Pepper Ann's class uses actual dolls as a way of teaching the students responsibility. After spending most of the episode failing at being responsible, she leaves a crying "Irma" on Nikki's doorstep. When she gets home, she monologues about how irresponsible she is as she turns off the lights and TV and prepares dinner for her sister. When her mother arrives home and comments on how responsible she is, Pepper Ann retrieves Irma (who stops crying).
 * Phineas and Ferb: In "Perry Lays an Egg", the boys find an egg (that they accidentally knocked out of a tree) that they believe to be Perry's. When Perry disappears, they decide to care for it... to the horror of Candace, whose maternal instincts have been awakened by a nature documentary. She tries to teach them the right way to care for an egg, which apparently involves dressing up in a platypus costume.
 * Kuzco on The Emperors New School has to do a class assignment with the others, each taking care of their own individual kitten. At his first attempt to care for it he throws it into his school locker (thinking it'll be fine on its own) and names it "Homework".
 * Done more than once by Daffy Duck.
 * Cody on Transformers Rescue Bots is given a robot baby to care for,which ends up having to be saved by the Bots.
 * In one episode of The Simpsons, Bart gets himself emancipated and moves out due to Homer’s behavior. Homer does not take this well and tries to learn to be a better parent by caring for a bag of sugar. Somehow, the bag of sugar gets switched with a real baby.

Real Life

 * A Canadian radio show once had the hosts adopt one of those lifelike electronic dolls when they were still brand new technology. "Baby Rocko" was dead within the week.
 * Supposedly, one out of each classroom set of the dolls is a "meth baby" which does not stop screaming. What purpose this serves, exactly, aside from being sadistic as all fuck, is a mystery, unless they think schoolchildren are capable of empathy (in which case they were never children).