DO NOT WATCH- The Change Up

Remember when I said we walked out on a movie? well, it was called The Change Up, and if you're a peaceful parent, or support peaceful parenting, but aren't a parent yet, do NOT give this movie your money to see. Hell, if you just believe in not neglecting children, you should NOT give this movie your money. We walked out on it within the first 15 minutes of movie time for many, many horrible parenting decisions being portrayed as okay. It didn't seem to be about an awful father who changed to be better, so I seriously doubt it did anything but get way worse after we left. Anyway, the following is a list of instances of bad parenting I saw in just a few minutes of this movie, along with why its not okay.

Here's a picture of a baby being breastfed so you all remember that good parents still exist

Seperate Sleeping

Even if you don't sleep with your baby in the bed for SIDS concerns or other reasons, you should sleep in the same room, because common sense dictates that, in an emergency, you can get to your baby more quickly. If there is a fire, it can be lifesaving not to have to run across the house to get to your baby, especially if the fire starts between you and the baby. In the event of a kidnapping, it's going to be easy enough to get to your baby before you can if there's an entrance to the house from outside  between the two of you. But this couple was portrayed sleeping in a far away room.

Delayed Crying Response

In the movie, screams come through the baby monitor in the opening scene. No one does anything for a good 10 seconds, then the woman in the couple tells the man it's his turn, they sit there for at least a minute with the guy groaning and upset he has to get up so early. Finally, he leaves his room for the walk to his kids, but once he gets there, he stares at the kid for a few seconds first and says something I don't really remember, but finally picks her up.

Circumcision

During a diaper change meant to be humerous, we get a brief glimpse of his baby boy's penis, which appeared to have the divide you do not see in whole infants. I'm not entirely sure that I saw this, so I won't focus too long on it. But, yeah, circumcsion is harmful and violates basic human consent.

Ignoring Indicators of Mental Difference

In the movie, the man's son was portrayed banging his head off the bars of his crib, rather hard, and ignoring the pain. Although neurotypical children with occasionally relatively gently bounce their heads off of things, head banging with the force and seeming lack of realization of pain depicted here, this indicates a mental difference such as autism, which needs attention to control the negative symptoms for the child. This went unnoticed by the father except for an exasperated comment that "I thought we'd talked about this, buddy". If a child does this, he needs to see a doctor promptly to diagnose these things.

Allowing the Head Banging Itself

I don't know if you've heard, but babies heads are sensitive. Babies get concussions more easily than older people. And head banging in the context shown could've caused serious damage, but the father didn't interfere. Any child hitting his/her/xyr head this hard needs to be stopped immediately and given some other task to focus on before he/she/xe gets a serious brain injury. Also, the pain itself will be bad when the child comes back to be mentally able to focus on it.

Formula Feeding

I've mentioned before some of the many reasons formula is bad for babies, and I'll give brief mention again of the increased incidence of colic, diarhea, ear infections, allergies, upper respiratory infections, and childhood cancer, and of the decreased reporting of a strong parental bond during teenage years, and, only anecdotally, a general sense of unease for the baby. Bottom line, don't formula feed.

Improper Bottle Feeding

Bottle feeding isn't best for baby, but if it's being done (and bottle feeding can be breastmilk feeding, which is acceptable, morally) wrong, it can cause even more problems. The father in this movie was feeding his twins without the proper angle of the bottle. He was holding the bottles at such an angle that the air was meeting the nipple. This is never supposed to be done, as it causes a baby to swallow the air and will give them tummy aches.

Sleep Training

Sleep trianing was not shown, but the father alluded to the idea that he would do it. Sleep training, for those who don't know, is like "cry it out" methods of teaching, which allow the baby to cry without responding. When babies stop crying due to sleep training, their bodies are responding as if they have been abandoned. It wastes energy to cry, and a baby's hormones tell it that something is seriously wrong because someone hasn't responded to it, so, they must conserve energy before they starve to death. This is a horrible way to treat a human, especially a baby. Babies cry when they need something. No more. And you can never, ever spoil a baby.

I didn't think I could stomach the rest of the movie without wanting to kill someone, and neither did halley, so we left, but I'm sure there were more bad things throughout the movie. So, please, peaceful parents of this world, boycott this movie.