Mom ‘shamed’ for letting child on a motorcycle
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CORPUS CHRISTI (KRIS) — A picture of a little girl on the back of a motorcycle has put a Corpus Christi family into the social media spotlight. The photo has fired up a debate over child safety and “parent shaming”.
The photo shows a 7-year old girl wearing a helmet riding on the back of a sports-style motorcycle.
Someone snapped a picture and posted it on social media. It’s now gone viral, garnering coverage by multiple media outlets including NBC’s Today Show.
But the attention isn’t all positive. The mother of that little girl is being scrutinized online by people who think she put her daughter in danger. Some are calling her a “bad parent”.
KRIS 6 spoke with the mother, Mallory Torres, who says she’s overwhelmed with the amount of attention and negative comments.
Torres says her boyfriend, who is an experienced biker, picked up her daughter on the bike after school one day last week. Torres doesn’t know who posted the picture online, but she’s surprised to see how many people are bashing her on social media.
“Things like, you’re a bad, talking to my boyfriend, that he’s a bad parent, my daughter should not be on a bike,” she said. “Things like that he should be in jail, things like that. Not realizing that nothing we were doing is illegal. She’s two years over the age limit for being on the back of a motorcycle.”
Torres says her 7-year old daughter wanted to ride on the motorcycle and that the girl was “fully protected” wearing a helmet, gloves, and protective gear underneath a hooded sweatshirt.
Torres is disappointed that the picture has opened her up to scrutiny and “mom shaming”.
“My kids are my life and I do everything I can for my kids. And for anybody, especially somebody that doesn’t know me, to say that I’m a bad parent, that’s .. ya know, I try so hard to be a good parent and to be called a bad parent, that just gets to me really bad.”
According to Texas law, Torres is doing nothing wrong by putting her daughter on the back of that motorcycle as long as the child is at least five years old and wearing a helmet.
“I just felt not really the need to defend my parenting, but to let people know that you parent one way, I’ll parent another way. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” she said.
Torres says, initially, the negative comments bothered her, but now she hopes to use the attention to raise awareness for biker safety.