Steve Irwin's Baby 'Stunt'

[Sister Golden Hair]

Originally posted by Millane
did i say he would, Irwin thinks that his baby would... he also talked about babies comprehending lots of stuff when their in the womb and blah blah im just giving his reasons im not going to justify them for him
EDIT: sorry re-reading that it seems a tad rude, sorry

It does seem you are defending his actions though. All that baby cares about right now is eating and sleeping and having a clean diaper on its bottom. He is a moron.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Millane
did i say he would, Irwin thinks that his baby would... he also talked about babies comprehending lots of stuff when their in the womb and blah blah im just giving his reasons im not going to justify them for him

Which just gives even MORE reasons for people to think he is a complete idiot and braindead. I'm beginning to think that he might have had the same childhood as he's giving his children - except at some point in time his father must have dropped him on his head. It is the only thing at this point that I can think of to explain his utter stupidity.

[Laurelyn]

Ooh. This is a really good idea . . . I can just hear him thinking. "I need publicity, so I'm going to make everyone think I'm dim-witted by putting my baby at risk while feeding a crocodile. I happen to trust these large toothed monsters, since I've been risking my life around them for all time, so I think one would make a nice babysitter."

Yeah. Riiiiight.

However, some of this depends on the baby. My brother was holding his head half up before four days, and by four months was quite competent at holding it fully up. Yeah, my brother's odd, but it is possible. Also, I'll give salt to the idea that the kid might absorb that "this big green toothed grinning monster isn't going to hurt me, see, Daddy's right . . . ." however, that's only valid IF the crocodile doesn't eat the kid. If.
A rather heavy if.
Because if the crocodile ate the kid, then we'd have trouble.

Overall, I'm not condoning what he did. It was really quite knuckleheaded of him, for a whole slew of reasons. But I do think the media's making a big fuss over it and could tone it down. All they're doing is screwing up the kid's life by making his dad unpopular. What's done is done and it will bloody stay done until someone invents a time machine, and the kid's alive.

[Hemel]

Laurelyn:
All they're doing is screwing up the kid's life by making his dad unpopular. What's done is done and it will bloody stay done until someone invents a time machine, and the kid's alive.

Yeah, though quite how making the dad unpopular, if that's what they're really trying to do, will screw up the baby's life I don't really know ... it'd certainly screw it up less than if the baby had actually got eaten ...

Your second point - yup, that's valid. I think the issue here then is the question of prevention. Like I think Steve Irwin ought to get the message that this kind of stunt isn't a good thing to do, it could have bad consequences, and perhaps he'd better not try it again. And maybe try thinking a bit more too. I think also it'd help get a message around to other parents too - there are, really are, limits on the kinds of things you should expose your children to.

I hope the silly man gets a very severe warning from a child protection agency, and will grow up enough to understand that parenting means responsibility - and trying to understand the abilities and limitations of your children, and that they have lives and rights of their very own - not just imposing your own crazy (psychobabble?) ideas on your children for your own ends.

Sorry if I sound harsh. But I think he is an idiot and ought to grow up.

[Ruinel]

I agree with Hemel. Well put.

I think as someone who works with dangerous animals, it is his responsibility to encourage safe behavior around them. Not make it a clown show. There were real dangers and to expose any risk to his baby's life was irresponsible to his child, and to the public. What if some ignoramous did the same thing, only his child was eaten?

[Millane]

im just not sure how his actions were imposing his ideas on his kids, could you expand a bit

[Hemel]

Yeah, I'll put my big foot in here ...

I don't know that much about Steve Irwin's ideas on bringing up children, but the mention about how he thinks they learn lots of things in the womb set alarm bells ringing for me. I don't doubt babies pick things up - some research suggests orientation towards the mother's voice for example, and of all things I've seen a crying baby calmed when a tub washing machine went on ... because, I suspect, the motion its paddles made in the water sounded very like a maternal heartbeat and the swooshing of blood in the maternal arteries, which I assume the baby linked with the sounds when it was secure in the womb.

But there are all sorts of crazy theories around about how to bring up your babies ... it's my opinion too that quite a few of them have the aim to make the baby a genius as it grows up, though there are others that aim for a calm contented confident child. I don't mind so much the latter, because I happen to think that it could well be beneficial to be like that ... but theories that incline to the former bother me, just because then it looks much more like the baby is serving the ends of the parents, rather than being appreciated for itself.

So, with Steve Irwin, yes, I can accept that babies learn things. Of course they do. But babies at this tiny stage that Steve Irwin's is at are still, in my view, very much instinctual as well. What they like is to feel warm, secure, comfortable, well fed, cuddled .... but they have no conceptualisation even of themselves, or of the parent as a separate entity, and most certainly they are incapable of forming the idea of 'crocodile'. So Steve's idea of getting the baby to learn about crocodiles, if indeed that is what he intended, is way way out of court. And I suppose this is what I mean, by talking about imposing his ideas. He has, it seems to me, some idea about early learning for his child, but actually does not understand what a tiny baby like that is capable of or even, maybe, needs. So he isn't acting with understanding of the baby ... just imposing his theories.

Yes, I'm sure all parents do that to some extent with their children ... and of course it could even be claimed that when I say a four week old baby needs cuddling and loving then I in my turn am imposing a theory! But the point is that a baby of that age is incapable, apart from the most basic efforts, of protecting or defending itself. That is the role of its carer, to look after it until it can. And to me that's where Steve Irwin, with his theories, very badly fell down ... he has his ideas, but actually infringed one of the most basic duties of a carer, and in my view potentially could have infringed one of the most basic needs of the baby. That's why I talk about imposing ...

I hope that makes sense