Big Kid

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