I think that babies need to stop being such little crying sissies. Babies also need to get jobs, and start pulling their goddamn weight around here.
It would seem obvious to me that intentionally scaring babies is mean. I guess some people disagree though.
Parents and siblings do not have the same purpose in the kid’s life; parents are supposed to protect their offspring until it can protect itself. Siblings are supposed to help kids get tougher and learn how to fight back and put up with things.
I don’t think deliberately scaring babies that don’t enjoy it is a good thing, but I don’t think I’d go as far as torture or abuse.
biggirl, have you ever tried putting one of these hair clips on your cat’s tail? It goes around the whole tail tightly but not too tight so it doesn’t hurt them, but boy, they don’t enjoy it much! 
The only time I’ve been genuinely amused by any of my kids being distressed was when we dressed my oldest son (who’s now five) in a little devil outfit for Halloween when he was a year old. He hated it, especially the little devil-horn hat, and threw a hissy fit that we just had to get on video.
But we didn’t share it on Youtube - that would just be mean.
Deliberately scaring your kids for kicks? That’s a douche move.
I see your point, but if you’ve spent any time around the wee ones, you’d know that, eventually, they’re gonna cry anyway.
An adult deliberately making an infant cry, for any reason whatsoever is the act of an impotent sadistic pile of shit in a bag of human skin. Babies generally cry as much as they need to, and count on the people who are supposed to love them to cut down on the frequency of bad shit in their lives.
Yes, laughing with your baby as she learns that startling things are often not really all that bad is a delightful part of bonding with your child. Fucking that up for a few giggles and a Youtube video is abuse. A parent putting the evidence on Youtube is an inevitable part of modern growing up. Showing dad the video while he sits in his shitty attends at the age of seventy will probably be part of your future as well. Don’t look to me for sympathy.
Tris
How else to defend yourself against random baby attacks?
By that logic, when they are learning to walk, they are gonna fall down anyway. Why not just give them a shove?
I just saw this today.
…can’t type…laughing too hard…
I showed it to the roomie, laughing as I did so. She said, ‘It’s really not that funny.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute..’ and looked at it again. ‘Yeah, it is.’ 
There’s a whole tongue-in-cheek book of stuff like this. It’s pretty funny, actually.
As a mother, I do not find it funny at all. Sure if a dog barks and baby jumps it could be funny. But as for a parent scaring a baby to amuse themselves is immature and ridiculous.
My 4 month old gets TERRORIZED everyday by his father scaring him numerous times a day. My son doesn’t giggle or laugh. He screams and cries. He’s terrified.
I have asked my husband to stop but it’s like talking to a brick wall.
I’m getting to the point of packing my stuff and leaving because my son deserves to live a calm life and feel safe.:mad:
Surprising babies or small toddlers - the peek-a-boo thing, or quick scares that leave everyone in smiles and laughter - is a-OK in my book. Genuinely scaring them and laughing about it yourself is psycho. And I don’t even have kids.
I watched this one video where a guy pulled (a rather dick, IMO) prank on his wife by putting saran wrap over the door frame at about head height. She ran into it without seeing it, fell down, laughs all around, right? Saw the same thing in a different video, except this time some older kids (9-11 years old) were the victims - yeah, not my thing, but whatevs. Then I saw someone who’d videoed the same prank, except this time the saran wrap was pulled over a pet door and the victim was some poor cat or dog. Not cool - you could clearly see how bewildered the creature was. I’m OK with pulling pranks on reasoning people, but doing it to pets or really small children that have no way of understanding what’s up? No. That’s just right out, and any decent person would think so.
This is not quite a hijack of the thread (I don’t think) but I wanted to share that just last night (late) I had the bright idea to start a thread dealing with air horns for waking people up. (Example: Airhorn wake up call)
I decided against it after not finding the perfect example. Plus, I was getting sleepy.
Anyway…
In general, scaring babies for kicks seems mean. It’s hard to judge the context of a lot of the videos, though (I confess I haven’t seen many because I don’t think they are particularly interesting). My baby used to cry when I sneezed. We felt sympathetic that she was scared, but it became a little funny to us because it was the exact same reaction every time - she would make this hilarious face and then start crying. Where is your learning curve, Baby? I didn’t sneeze on purpose but when I sneezed unexpectedly, I didn’t feel like a terrible parent, I felt like a parent who was bemused by a baby crying over a sneeze.
I don’t know if we would have posted it in a public forum, but we talked about how great it would be if we could capture it on film.
Adults should have developed the empathy to understand why deliberately scaring, irritating, or upsetting someone else for no good reason is not a good thing to do, and the self-control to keep from doing it even if it is amusing. Siblings are usually kids, and can’t be expected to have those faculties yet. Adults shouldn’t be encouraging them to do that kind of thing, though.
Something like a baby being scared when you sneeze is different, because you’re not deliberately trying to upset the baby, and it’s not something you can keep yourself from doing.
I startle easily, and I do not like being startled. I don’t think I’ll react well if someone tries to scare our baby after she is born, if it looks to me like it’s really upsetting her. I bet it’s really hard to get a jury to convict a new mother, too, just saying…
Every time he does this, punch your husband in the junk. He’ll get the idea and stop scaring his son eventually.
Video it and put it on You Tube.
*disclaimer, not to be taken seriously
I donno, this sounds like one hell of an idea. If he gets a kick out of psychologically torturing an infant, the mental hell the kid is probably in for makes me shudder.
Babies have to figure out everything. Parents can help in that task.
What to make out of, “I scare you. Then I laugh at you. And now I’ll comfort you?” If that happened to me more than once as an adult I’d forget about trusting that person.
But I really do get that urge that so many of us share to tease in sort-of malicious way. Call it passive-aggressive. It relieves the spiter but not so much the spiten.
And it invites payback. Right around fifteen years.
Isn’t that the dynamic of every abusive romantic relationship ever?
