Parents, please stop tormenting your kids for clicks!

“Bad times, hard times, … We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times” (Sermon 30, St Augustine).

In my youth I knew a mother who played cruel “jokes” on babies. With a little one seated on her lap, she would temptingly show a biscuit or a candy, and — just as the excited infant leaned forward, arms and legs churning, mouth open — she would devour it, with a laugh.

The babies, even very small ones, seemed to understand the cheat. Their subsequent outrage seemed to contain a note of true indignation, as though they instinctively understood that, more than being denied a cookie, they and their dignity had been disrespected.

Treated poorly, even babes can learn early lessons against trust.

Lately my social media feeds have highlighted creepy videos of parents purposely “spilling” (more like, “tossing”) water onto their small babies, all for the reactions of their startled, often harassed and confused looking littles. One woman, smiling moronically at the camera while repeatedly tossing water on a not-yet-walking baby was particularly upsetting to see, both for the weird thrill she seemed to be getting from her horrid little game, and the helplessness of the tormented child, who finally cried just in time for the last cup-emptying dousing.

“Cut,” calls the director, “post it!” And, voila! Another TikTok masterpiece is brought forth, delivering in its valuable afterbirth literally millions of life-giving dopamine hits to the posters, whose craving for them, click by click, seems to outweigh the desire to help kids feel safe, secure and prioritized.

Children learn what they live. If they are dandled on a lap only to be splashed with water, or given attention only to have an egg unexpectedly smashed onto their forehead, or if their milk bottle has been dangled before them but bewilderingly delayed for the camera and the social media post, they learn several crucial lessons:

— The familial lap is not always safe; it is not a trustworthy place.
— At any moment, parents may shock, scare or egg you for laughs, just like bullies.
— Getting fed is conditional.
— The zeitgeist rules! The train of the trends must be caught!
— The valuable life is lived in front of cameras.
— You’re only as good as your most-liked performance.

These are destructive messages for any child to absorb, and it’s distressing to realize that so many parents — either enthralled by attention or afflicted with severe fears of “missing out” on something — are looking at their kids as useful content fodder and happily sacrificing their innocent sense of safety to what Flip Wilson used to call “The Church of What’s Happening Now.”

Will these kids someday find these videos and call them reassuring and funny? Somehow, I doubt it.

Also, to the parents who think throwing ice at the bathtub with enraged grunts, howls and moans for the camera is a good thing? If your kids are hearing you, they’re plenty scared and confused and — because they are kids — they are instinctively wondering what they’ve done wrong, and why they are bad. Think about that before you perform and post.

Look, I get it, I do. Parenting is not easy; it’s wearying and patience-sapping and it loads us up with self-doubt and guilt, even (or perhaps especially) if we’re trying to do everything right but missing the mark every day.

As a young mom whose husband traveled for work, I often single-parented for weeks at a time. I know that sometimes our kids, at any age, can throw us into panicked helplessness or prolonged annoyance.

Parenting is rough. The current, sensational trial of a mom who, possibly experiencing a post-partum psychosis, strangled her three children is bringing a lot of attention to the real and serious needs of overwhelmed parents.

Perhaps the subsequent discussions should note that even stressed-out moms and dads who are not suffering from hormonal imbalances can certainly feel isolated, helpless, trapped and out of ideas.

I’m just hoping that in those dialogues we’ll also acknowledge that parenting tender, trusting and developing psyches sometimes means putting down the camera and ignoring the latest stupid thing “everyone is doing,” or even swallowing back the need to howl out loud, so as not to burden their precious childhoods with what too often stings into adulthood.

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