War Outcry as 'bean dad' forces hungry child to open tin can

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A dad in the US who boasted about his parenting skills after telling his hungry nine-year-old daughter to open a tin of beans or go without food has caused outcry on social media.

After six hours the child successfully opened the tin and was finally allowed to eat, he said in now-deleted tweets.

The dad, a podcaster, claimed it was a victory for "good parenting".

But other parents accused him of neglect, while some suggested he invented the story to get attention.

Twitter users nicknamed the father "bean dad" as the incident caused another heated debate on social media, where parenting methods are a frequent cause of disagreement.

John Roderick, who is also a musician, shared the story on Saturday on Twitter, explaining that it began when his daughter asked him to make baked beans.

After she brought him a tin-opener and can of beans, he asked her how she thought a tin-opener worked, he said.

When she said she didn't know, he said he realised "a teaching moment just dropped into my lap".

"Apocalypse dad was overjoyed," he added.

Explaining that he wanted his daughter to learn how to open a tin of beans, he said she tried for six hours.

"She was next to me grunting and groaning trying to get the thing. I should say that spatial orientation, process visualization and order of operation are not things she… intuits. I knew this would be a challenge," he said.

Eventually she opened the tin and ate the beans, he explained.

The tweets were quickly shared widely as other users condemned the incident, suggesting it was poor parenting.

"I feel like it's super valuable to teach kids that they're not alone in the world and that there's no shame in asking other people for help and support," wrote journalist Jason Schreier .

Another user suggested Mr Roderick's approach was "ridiculous" - and that he should simply have fed his daughter, and then showed her how to use a can opener.



A handful of users agreed with the lesson Mr Roderick claims he taught his child.

"This teaches independence and personal growth. He did nothing wrong and in fact made me wish I did more of this," one wrote , while some fans of his podcast suggested that the story about his daughter was written in the voice of a character on his show and therefore should not be taken seriously.

Mr Roderick did not reply to media requests for comment but did defend himself on Twitter before later deleting his account.

"Six hours is the length of time between meals. Lunch at noon, dinner at six. They're literally saying child abuse," he wrote. He added that the backlash was "astonishing. My kid is fine everybody."

But a woman who said she was a teacher suggested it was a poor way to educate children.

"Kids learn best when they aren't hungry. Everyone learns differently and different approaches (eg. A guiding hand) are helpful, especially if/when someone's struggling," she said.


And author Racheline Maltese said that the lessons the child probably learnt were negative.

"Things you taught your kid: food must be earned; disordered eating in the forms of food hoarding and punishing herself by not eating; asking for help is futile," she wrote.

Some users also accused Mr Roderick of racism, sexism and homophobia after searching through his previous tweets.

However, his podcast co-host Ken Jennings defended Mr Roderick, calling him " a loving and attentive dad ", adding on Twitter: "There's no axis where any anti-Semitic screenshot represents any actual opinion I've ever heard from him."

On Sunday the podcast My Brother, My Brother, and Me said it would no longer be using Mr Roderick's music.
 
Oldposting, but when I was growing up everyone knew how to use a can opener by five or six. At nine, most of us could fry ourselves an egg sandwich or boil up some mac and cheese if we were hungry. I can't fathom this kid not already knowing how to use a can opener, but I guess her taking six hours to figure it out offers a pretty clear explanation. Why didn't this child of the information age think to just check wikihow or something? Wouldn't that be her first reaction?

I think there's this aspect of more modern parents where they assume everything they knew how to do as a kid, they just knew naturally. How to cook, clean, etc will just organically become skills as you grow up.
So they don't bother teaching or showing their kids anything, and just expect them to know things by the time they reach certain ages.
If you let your kid just play on the ipad all day, they're not going to magically understand a mechanical device like a can opener, regardless of how easy it is to use to anyone who knows how.
 
After six hours the child successfully opened the tin and was finally allowed to eat, he said in now-deleted tweets.
"Six hours is the length of time between meals. Lunch at noon, dinner at six. They're literally saying child abuse," he wrote. He added that the backlash was "astonishing. My kid is fine everybody."
So, did she ask for the beans directly after being fed or around the time they usually eat their next meal, making it 12 hours without food?

Either way, "figure it out yourself" is kind of a crappy way to teach anyone anything.
By around 9-10 I was fairly independent when it came to things like feeding myself, but I was taught that beforehand and got to practice under supervision until my parents were satisfied that I could use the stove without burning the house down.
 
I'm very much calling fake.

Most kids in that situation would have given up way earlier. What kind of home is he living in that the only thing in the house for his kid to eat was a can of beans? And where is the mom in this situation? Even if the parents don't live together anymore, I can't see the daughter not calling her and saying "Dad's being an asshole again".
People would lie on twitter? I don't believe it.
 
I'd say he's a pretty horrible dad because he raised a 9 year old who needs 6 hours to figure out how to operate a can opener. Then again, a 9 year old having enough focus to work on one specific task for 6 hours is fairly impressive. It's almost like the details in this story and subsequent explanations make no sense and are a clear fabrication. Thankfully, we live in a world where nobody can lie and tell exaggerated stories on social media.

In all seriousness, the dude is dumb for thinking this story makes him look like a good dad. Maybe he was going for humor, but unless he was trying to specifically dunk on his kid for being so retarded they need 6 hours to use a can opener, I don't know what the punchline is. If he wanted to be hero dad and make his kid not look dumb, he should have said how he taught them to make some kinda basic meal and for the last week or whatever, their kid has been independent and hasn't once asked him for lunch or a snack or whatever. Could even throw in a lame dad joke at the end like "but now there's never any beans in the house left for me."
 
How in God's name does a nine-year-old not know how to work a can opener?
Because her dumbfuck parents never taught her. That she's nine years old and had never encountered a can opener tells me she's either not involved in helping prepare meals, or else this family eats total garbage--takeout, frozen dinners, pre-assembled heat-and-serve stuff. If they were the kinds of people who were so fussy about food they rarely bought anything in cans, they wouldn't have had a can of baked beans on hand in the first place, or suggested she have that as her lunch.

In any event, their job is to teach their kid how to feed herself properly, and that she's made it to age nine without ever having to use a can opener--or even knowing how to use one just by observation--tells me they're failing big time.

In one of his tweets, he claims it's because everything comes in pop-top cans these days, so there's rarely any need for a can opener. Uh--no. Not unless you eat a lot of heat-and-serve crapfood; looking in my own kitchen cabinets, 90% of the cans do not have pop-tops, and the ones that do are things like sardines, or dolmas, or, yeah, Spam. Beans? No. Tuna? No. Tomatoes? No. But I do know that a lot of stuff like canned chili, soups, stew, and prepared beans (such as baked beans) do come with pop-tops.

What ground my gears the most about this entire stupid tweet thread was this:
"She was next to me grunting and groaning trying to get the thing. I should say that spatial orientation, process visualization and order of operation are not things she… intuits. I knew this would be a challenge," he said

He said this shit about his nine-year-old daughter in public, on Twitter, for all the world to see. He's using fancy words to describe what he believes are her shortcomings--when really, her biggest shortcoming is her father.

This child has a father who will let her spend six hours wrestling with a basic skill she should have acquired by the time she had sufficient hand strength to use a can opener--say, age five or six. Not only that, but he claims she lacks the cognitive skills to do well at solving the problem of how a can opener works. Yet he leaves her to struggle, instead of offering guidance and helping her figure it out, which would have had her opening cans like an old pro in less than 10 minutes.

"Oh, a basic skill I totally neglected to teach you, and that I should be ashamed of for not having done so already? Well, I'm going to make up for that by making you figure it out on your own, with no help from me, even though you obviously lack the cognitive skills to figure it out easily." Seriously, that's fucked up.

And she has a father who, once she has finally figured out how to use a can opener, will then make a series of self-congratulatory tweets about how he rose to this Teaching Moment by leaving his kid to fend for herself until she finally got it.

Granted, there's a whole lot of #thathappened in this story. Why didn't she just google "how to use a can opener"? Why didn't she just go eat something else? Did he forbid her from doing so? Because if he did, he's an even bigger asshole than he already seems to be. Did it really take six hours? Because if it did, his kid is really not-smart, and broadcasting that fact on Twitter is a dickmove.

This guy really does deserve all the hate he's getting.
 
“ I should say that spatial orientation, process visualization and order of operation are not things she… intuits. I knew this would be a challenge," he said
Yeah, sounds like the kid is a sped (and dad might be a little special as well). He should have at least tried to show her how to use the can opener though.

edit: ninja’d.
 
Going without food for six hours is not child abuse. When I was a lot younger, I once fucked up something on my dad's computer and got sent to my room for a day. Was that child abuse? No, because I didn't starve.

MF's seriously think any form of punishment is abuse.
But she didn't do anything that was worthy of punishment--and making her father aware of how he was failing as a parent isn't anything she should have been punished for.

There are people all over Twitter hand-wringing about how he let his kid "starve" for six hours, and I agree, that's bullshit, and not the real issue here.
 
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