A South African father’s video is going viral thanks to his wife’s ingenious (but awkward) parenting skills.
Tyrone Morris posted the video on Facebook on January 14. It quickly attracted 20 million views from around the world—and once you see it, it’s easy to figure out why.
Tyrone wrote this description to go along with the bizarre video clip:
“The best thing about having cameras in your house is watching your wife trying to exit the room after putting your son down!! Sometimes you have to use your initiative for your exit!! PS The SA Army are calling me for you to do training on the reverse leopard crawl !![sic]”
Recorded on a baby monitor, the clip shows Tyrone’s wife, Caryn, shortly after she’d put their 15-month-old baby to sleep. As any parent knows, this is an especially sensitive time. One creaking door can instantly wake an infant up, and when a mom is desperate for some shut-eye, she’ll do anything she needs to do to manage the situation.
Okay, maybe not every parent. It’s hard to imagine adopting this mom’s skills, but the Facebook comments were mostly supportive.
“We had guests at home for dinner and because [the baby] sensed people were around he was moaning and wanted to get out the cot. Every time I walked out the room he would stand up and moan,” Caryn explained. “I decided to sit on the floor next to the cot so he could see me. He then just lay there with his eyes a little bit open. I lay back and noticed he didn’t flinch or move or try and get out the cot.”
“I slithered a little bit and he still remained on his side. Before I knew I had made it out the door and he hadn’t moved. I was too nervous to go back in the room to see if his eyes were open.”
While Tyrone initially thought he’d keep the video to himself, he eventually decided that it was too good not to share with friends.
The clip reminds us of a similar viral video created by 29-year-old Esther Anderson. As a sort of public service announcement, Anderson set up a how-to video for parents. It shows her introducing methods like “the replacement” and “the ninja,” some of which are utterly ridiculous.
“I’ve decided that any parent that thinks they have parenting all figured out is either lying or just full of themselves,” Anderson told TODAY. “And, I think we’re getting to the point in our society where it’s okay to accept the fact that we’re human and we make mistakes—and we make them a lot!”
“There’s comfort (through videos like this) in knowing that we’re not the only ones out there who deal with the same frustrations that come along with such an important job.”
