Parenting

Parents Post Video Of 6-Month-Old Water Skiing For World Record And Get Backlash

There are some Guinness World Records where I can’t help but wonder if this is something people should try to do for any reason at all. The case of six-month-old Rich Humpherys and his attention-hungry parents, Mindi and Casey Humpherys, is one of them. The parents have been receiving backlash after posting a video of their child becoming the youngest person to ever water ski. Rich beat the previous record-holder by 23 days, according to the Daily Mail, which implies this is a thing other parents do. Why?!

To be fair, it doesn’t look like Rich is having a bad time on his little, specially designed board:

via Instagram/@richcaseyhumpherys

If anything, he seems kind of unaware of what’s happening and it appears the board is going quite slow, he’s strapped in, and his parents are overseeing him carefully. If you can call taking a baby water skiing “careful.”

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Rich Casey Humpherys (@richcaseyhumpherys) on

The backlash online was swift. While I generally find online parenting commenters obnoxious and unable to make a snap judgment about what other people do, I have to admit this does seem like a completely unnecessary thing to do with an infant. He won’t remember it, and even if you’re being very careful, it wouldn’t take much for things to go terribly wrong here.

And while I’m not a doctor, I do have to agree that this seems like an unnatural position for the legs of a child that can’t walk yet to hold for so long:

 

There is always backlash to the backlash, however, and a few people commented to say they think people are overreacting and this is a fun cool family moment that will make a great memory to share:

 

What I’m more worried about is how young the next record holder would be. Little Zyla St Onge only took the title in 2016. She didn’t hold it long. Who’s next and should we call CPS?

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