This Dad Posted a Pic of Himself Bathing with His 2-Year-Old Daughter: Inappropriate or Not?
Whether it was to save time or water, or just seemed like a cute bonding moment, the odds are high that you took a bath with one of your parents at some point in your childhood.
So Danish comedian Torben Chris says he didn’t think anything of it when he posted this photo on Facebook of himself bathing with his 2-year-old daughter:
He probably should have realized that some people would lose their shit. (It's social media, after all.)
In a Facebook post that’s since been deleted, Torben wrote (per the U.K.’s The Sun newspaper) that he published the photo in an attempt to erase the stigma around fathers bathing with their kids.
"Someone told me that he had been accused of pedophilia by a stranger because he bathed with his two-year-old daughter," he said. "Another had been warned on his 'urge' towards pedophilia, because he had shared a picture of a French braid on his 11-year-old daughter's bare back on social media. There was even a father whose wife thinks it was inappropriate, if your daughter sees her father urinate.”
He went on to argue that there’s no reason why children and adults can’t be naked together. "There is nothing wrong with a father who washes his daughter's bottom when she's a child,” he says. “On the contrary, it is bloody disgusting if nobody does it, and unfair if only the mother does it."
"Nudity with your child is not gross, but natural,” he concluded. “A father in the shower with his daughter is not pedophilia, it's fun."
In a video Torben recently posted on Facebook, he talks about how he didn’t expect to get all of the attention he did — but he’s grateful for the support he received from many. “The wide majority of people were on my side,” he said. “There was a little number of people who were really upset about the picture.”
Since Torben has a one-man show all about the Danish fear of nudity, we’re kind of doubtful that he didn’t expect at least some of the backlash he got. Was it really an attempt to put a hot-button topic out there or a publicity stunt?
Regardless of the reason for the pic, Torben says that people should raise their kids how they want. He has this parting message: “Don’t dictate that this is inappropriate behavior…it’s natural to be naked with your children. It’s a natural thing to be naked, period.”
So, what do you think of the photo and Torben's message behind it?
