Your Daily Awesome

Mental Floss takes us on a quick stroll down the memory lane that heads to B.F. Skinner’s notorious invention of the ’40s, the Baby Tender. Here’s Wikipedia’s nutshell entry on the ‘Tender:

“An ‘air-crib’(also known as a ‘baby tender’ or humorously as an ‘heir conditioner’) is an easily-cleaned, temperature and humidity-controlled box Skinner designed to assist in the raising of babies. It was one of his more controversial inventions, and was extremely poorly received by the general public due to perceptions of its making child rearing cold and mechanical. It was designed to make the early childcare more simple (by greatly reducing laundry, diaper rash, cradle cap, etc.), while encouraging the baby to be more confident, mobile, comfortable, healthy and therefore less prone to cry.”

Sounds like a recipe for a disastrous childhood, right? Turns out, maybe not.

“In all, perhaps 300 children have been raised in Skinner-type cribs. We recently tracked down more than 50 of them. The outcome? Positive results across the board. All of the children had normal health, and their parents praised the crib for its safety, warmth, and convenience. As for Deborah, she grew up normally, married a professor, and is now a successful artist in England.” (Are we sure she didn’t change her name to Andrea Zittel?)