Have you seen the video of the dad who decides his little boy has been sleeping too long? He takes a loaded water gun, stalks through the house chanting the Doom theme, and then lets him have it. Pow, pow, pow, right in the back.
Surprise, surprise, it's gone viral. Not surprising? People actually approve of what this dad did to his poor little guy. Thousands of them.
The video is almost a year old (although it just surfaced on the front page of Reddit yesterday), and it has nearly half a million "likes" on YouTube. Kind of depressing, isn't it? Wait, here, let me show you the video before I explain just why this guy is not funny or likeable:
OK, now that you've heard the poor kid crying, I have a question for you. Would you want to be woken up that way? No? Me neither. So why should it be done to a poor kid? And why would you laugh?
I get it, kids are small. They are easy targets for adults who feel like being a-holes.
But kids are people. They have feelings. And the first thing parents should think about when they go to do something to their kids shouldn't be "OMG, will I get a million hits on YouTube." It should be "would I be OK with someone doing this to me?"
So I ask it again: would you be OK with someone walking into your room and blasting you out of a dead sleep with a continuous stream of water?
I'm not some hardass here. I've been put to my limits by a cranky sleeper. Between road trips and childcare changes and playdates and late-night community concerts and catching fireflies and everything else that goes with summer, my kid's routine has been shot all to hell. Disturb her, and I may have to question your dedication to life on this planet. The other day, I kid you not, I offered her a donut in exchange for getting out of the hotel bed so we could get on the road and get back home.
I'm not proud of it. But at least I don't feel like my kid will have to go therapy over it in 20 years.
So be honest, when is the last time you stopped and thought: "Would I like what I'm doing to my kid if it were done to me?"
Image via MrJibaku/YouTube
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Comments 185
lol... really? You think this is abusive??? SCAR all the children for life. We're all doomed.
LOL! Sorry, this kid is laughing... and this is something that my kids and I would do to each other.
to me it sounds like hes laughing not crying look closely he even has a big smile on his face this dad is just trying to make waking up fun.... some peopl ejust over evaluate things and make things dramatic when its not let them have theri fun! i would do it to my daughter probably its been done to me hundreds of times its fun!
The dad probably already told him to wake up, and when he wouldn't the dad probably used a different method. The kid looked liked he loved it! He was giggling the whole time! My dad used to try to wake me up, and when I wouldn't get up he'd pull my blinds up all the way to let the sun shine in, and throw my covers off of me (in a playful way). Sometimes he'd take my stuffed animals, and have them bounce all in my face to get me up. I don't think that was wrong, some parents are just more creative when getting their kids to get out of bed.
Once again, making something out of nothing in order to be pissed off at the world. The kid was LAUGHING. Get off it.
Yeah, I saw a huge grin on the boy's face, he was loving it. Seriously, Jeanne maybe YOU need therapy if you're going to freak out over a video like this. I could totally see my husband doing something like that to my daughter, well, if he was ever the first one up, which never happens.
He's LAUGHING not crying, you idiot. Must you manufacture your stories now? Have enough hatred for men/fathers that you'll simply ignore reality?