Two Boston-area teen girls have been charged in juvenile court this week with child endangerment and assault with a deadly weapon for what they thought was a hilarious joke: putting a 7-month old baby (one of the girls’ little cousin) into the refrigerator and posting it on SnapChat for a laugh. (As you can see on the video, they removed her after just a few seconds, and she is unharmed.)
This, parents, is just another horrifying example of how social media is messing with kids’ heads. The teenage brain at this stage of development is impulsive and inclined to make poor decisions: the ability to broadcast these “pranks” or “challenges” is making these decisions all the more RASH and DANGEROUS.
The baby girl’s mother asked her niece and her friend to watch the child for just a few minutes so she could take a shower—haven’t all new moms just wanted a quick break to take an uninterrupted shower? One would think that leaving the child with your own teenage niece for a few minutes while you were IN THE HOUSE would be safe. But no.
The child’s mom said in an interview with Boston’s WCVB-5, “I was horrified. I was in shock. I’m traumatized from that. I don’t want anyone near my child anymore.” She also says she doesn’t believe the girls actually MEANT any harm,
“I know she wouldn’t hurt my daughter and that wasn’t her intentions. I think it was all foolishness, stupidity, but she added, “I will no longer be leaving my children with my niece or her friends again ever in my life.”
Here’s my question: would these two teen girls have even THOUGHT to put a BABY in a REFRIGERATOR if they hadn’t had the means to film and broadcast it on SnapChat? My answer is NO. The ability to post their shenanigans was undoubtedly the CATALYST for this incident. No smartphone, no SnapChat, no baby in the fridge.
