When you’re sick, doing the simplest tasks can seem like climbing Mount Everest, especially as a mom, knowing you still have to do all the things for everybody. We all know there are few things that are simple about taking care of a small human being. Watching a child has the potential to zap your energy even when you’re in perfect health.
Still, they have to be taken care of. And so sometimes, we find ways to cut corners. One sick mom did just that, but when she shared her energy-saving tactic on TikTok, she was met with quite a bit of backlash.
This mom feeds her baby like he's a chicken.
Raquel Tolman, who goes by the name @desertbabysteps on TikTok, wrote in the caption for her now viral video that when she’s sick, it’s all about survival mode. Tolman shared how she gives her infant son his snacks when she’s under the weather.
In the video, her son lies on his back looking up at her. Tolman holds the camera looking down at her child and says, “Sometimes when I’m sick, I like to feed my baby his little snacks as if he was a chicken.”
She says her son loves it.
In the video, Tolman throws snacks on the ground where her baby is laying. He rolls onto his stomach to begin picking them up from the carpet and eating them.
As she throws the cereal, Tolman says, “Hey baby, eat the snacks.”
Tolman claims her son loves it. But the people of the internet did not, and honestly, it's a bit unsettling.
Some people on TikTok were grossed out.
“I find it humiliating and disgusting,” one commenter wrote. “Sick or not, I would never treat my child with such disrespect.”
Others took issue with the cleanliness of feeding your child off the floor.
One person commented, “What the … that’s so dirty … I could never do this to a child.”
Babies and toddlers put things that aren't the cleanest in their mouths all the time, but we can't help but think of how demeaning this would be if done to an adult or even an older child.
Others came to her defense.
But not everyone took issue with her actions. In fact, several moms admitted to doing the same thing, whether they were sick or not.
“Are you really a parent if your kids haven’t had floor puffs? Lol,” one user asked.
Other parents chimed in to suggest that this type of activity would do wonders for the child in boosting their immune system and strengthening their muscles and motor skills from needing to be able to nimbly retrieve the snacks from the carpet.
They may have a point, but certainly all of this could have been accomplished with a pile of puffs placed on a clean blanket rather than thrown at the baby. Heaven only knows what lurks in the fibers of long, shaggy brown carpet.
