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C00002 00002		2nd child of B.F.Skinner, Deborah, b. 1944. "When Yvonne said that
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	2nd child of B.F.Skinner, Deborah, b. 1944. "When Yvonne said that
she did	not mind bearing another child but rather dreaded the first year or
two, I suggested that we simplify the care of a baby.
	"The human species evolved in a tropical climate and certainly
without benefit of clothing.  ...in a modern house babies were kept warm by
insulating them with several layers of cloth. Julie [first child] had worn a
diaper, shirt, and nightgown, had slept on a thick mattress covered with a
pad and a sheet, and was zipped into a flannel blanket, her head protruding
through a collar, her arms in flipper-like sleeves.  It was impossible for
her to turn over.  The commonest alternative was a top sheet and one or more
blankets.  All this was not only inefficient and confining, it was
unnecessary.  In a modern house the temperature of the space in which a
baby lived could be controlled in a better way.  Other problems could be
solved at the same time.
	"For our second child I built a crib-sized living space that we began
to call the "baby-tender".  It had sound-absorbing walls and a large
picture window.  Air entered through filters at the bottom and, after being
warmed and moistened, moved upward through and around the edges of a
tightly stretched canvas, which served as a mattress.  A strip of sheeting
ten yards long passed over the canvas, a clean section of which could be
cranked into place in a few seconds."
	
	"...she wore only a diaper.  Completely free to move about, she was
soon pushing up, rolling over, and crawling.  She breathed warm, moist,
filtered air [Skinner and wife were allergic to various things], and her
skin was never waterlogged with sweat or urine.  Loud noises were muffled
(though we could hear her from any part of the house), and a curtain pulled
over the window shielded her from bright light when she was sleeping."
	
	"I watched Debbie carefully, of course, but although the
baby-tender would have been an ideal place for experiments, I did very few.
At one point I attached a thread to the canvas that served as a mattress
and made a kymograph record of her activity...."
	
	"When she was six months old, we heard that a famous pediatrician
at the Mayo Clinic, Dr.C.A.Aldrich, had criticized the baby-tender, and I
sent him some facts." [orig. kept temp. at 85. @ 6 mos betw. 76-80.
bathed twice a week, though once a week wd. suffice. highly regular
sleeping habits. no colds. never cries. Looks out through window. Not
socially isolated. Aldrich replies that that's ok, but had reservations
for use by average person.]
	
	Skinner asked General Mills for advice on commercial development.
Their engineers reported, "...a very ticklish subject for a lot of
novices to play with.  One underdone baby, one frozen youngster, or one
smothered child or something of that sort charged to General Mills,
could be a pretty bad thing from a publicity standpoint." Said it
prob. could not be patented, simply a small heated room, nothing new.
	
	Skinner wanted to do research, esp. w. twins, on baby-tender's
effect on sleeping and eating patterns, illness, weight, appearance
of new behavior, etc. Didn't.
	
	Spring 1945 (Debbie 9 mo), sent article Ladies Home Journal.
Pub. after some dithering.  Oct. issue, "Baby in a Box". Newspapers,
radio picked up story. Newsreel film made.  "In the film...I was holding
Debbie on my lap and Eve was playing chess with Julie on a low coffee
table.  I put Debbie on the floor and, predictably, she crawled to the
chessboard and pulled it off the table.  Eve picked her up, left the room,
and was shown putting her in the baby-tender and pulling down the shade.
Only when I saw the film in a local theatre did I realize that we were
giving the impression that we used a baby-tender to keep Debbie out of
the way as a trouble-maker.... Hundreds of pregnant women or their
husbands wrote to ask me how to build a baby-tender, and I sent
mimeographed instructions....A few readers misunderstood the point."
[`caging this baby up like an animal' Got confused with Skinner Box.]
	
	Some people said they wanted to manufacture, market.  Came to
nothing.  2nd article in LHJ.
	
	Debbie began to treat tightly stretched canvas as trampoline.
	
	Second group planned to manufacure, market. Came to nothing.
	
	Favorable response from Children's Hosp in Boston to talk on
subject.(~1947)
	
Above are from `The Shaping of a Behaviorist' B.F.Skinner, l979 Knopf. (2nd
volume of autobiography.)
	
	Debbie turned out fine. "(At least once during each semester
that I teach, I have to respond to a question something like:"How does
Skinner feel about the daughter who went crazy after being kept in a
box?" or"Isn't it true that one of Skinner's daughters is psychotic
and that the other committed suicide?")" No. Deborah herself has
suggested that probably the rumors about her, rather than the aircrib
experience, are responsible for any psychological problems she has
had."  Went to college, studied art, had showing of etchings at
Royal Acad. of Arts, married, beats BFS at chess.
	--`What is B.F.Skinner Really Saying? Robert D. Nye 1979
Prentice-Hall.