Can We Please Stop Laughing At Parents Publicly Mocking Their Child’s Tantrums?

Although it’s a trend that seems to continue without abating, I still don’t find it funny when parents publicly mock their kids during their weaker moments. It might be entertaining as a private, family video that they show them when they are older but a child’s tantrum should not be passed around the internet to make people laugh. This mom doesn’t seem to think much of it and frankly, that bothers me. I’m not going to say she isn’t a good parent but I think we should respect our kids enough to not tease them on the internet during their more difficult moments. After all, even adults have little fits sometimes and none of us would want to be mocked for it in such a public fashion.

Here is the video via Babble. Apparently, some people find this funny:

[youtube_iframe id=”boQrRZHbjeM”]

It just feels so mean-spirited and unnecessary to me. And a huge invasion of a private moment her daughter was having. She is four years old. This is what four year old children do sometimes and sure, it’s awful and annoying and you might be mocking them at home when they can’t see you but should the whole internet be able to see it? To me, it’s one thing to talk about it or even write a blog post about it — everyone who has a kid can relate — but to share that difficult moment with the world seems unfair, especially when the child has no say in the matter.

I guess the internet gives us a whole new range of options for commiserating about parenting. I do it here every day with my posts and some might say that it could be hurtful to my kids one day. That is their prerogative and we all have a threshold. I guess mine is filming and then widely sharing my child’s meltdown with the world. It’s an invasion of privacy and just seems cruel. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should film and share a kid’s tantrum. Like all of us, this kid deserves to have her meltdown without being mocked by her own mother and then letting the internet in on the laugh too. To her credit, at least this mom didn’t show her daughter and we only heard her, but still. It seems so wrong. I hope this trend dies soon because it’s not funny.

(Image: GettyImages)