Some people will do anything for social media clout, including exploiting their children and risking their safety. That’s what TikTok mom and army veteran, Savannah Glembin, did when she posted a video of her husband, Hank, in full army uniform and gloves handling their young toddler, Gunner, who is tightly wrapped in layer upon layer of plastic cling wrap.
The confused child cannot move his arms at all and looks like he’s been crying. His mother laughs and cracks jokes as her husband drops him on the bed, carries him around while saying “this is the only way” and plops him face down on the bed, which is quickly cut to show the child struggling to free himself while facing up.
The video has since been deleted from Savannah’s channel but @Auntkaren0 made a response video talking about how disturbing that video is, saying, “I don’t understand how putting your toddler in an uncomfortable position…pushing him…is funny…Not only did you do this just for your entertainment…you thought that this was going to be everyone’s entertainment!”
What Savannah posted on her TikTok was child abuse. Abuse is not just hitting and yelling, abuse is also emotional and psychological and includes purposely putting someone in a situation where they feel scared, uncomfortable, and confused. Plastic wrap is extremely hot and uncomfortable, so using it to restrain a child, even as a “joke,” is abuse and not funny at all.
Enough people were disturbed by Savannah’s video that Child Protective Services ended up launching an investigation and took Gunner into custody.
Savannah posted an update where she talked about Gunner being taken away but continued to defend her actions saying, “It was just a funny thing that Hank did because Gunner was getting into the stove that day and tried putting a fork in a socket.”
She also claimed that Gunner was laughing and smiling in the video, but if you watch the video, he looked confused and his nose and eyes are red as if he had been crying right before the camera started recording. He did not smile or laugh once in the video. And if what she presented was disturbing, image what was edited out!
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Gunner has since been reunited with his reckless parents. Savannah posted another TikTok with the caption, “CPS cleared us of wrongdoing and determined our home, with us, is a safe one for our son, despite that…a hard lesson was learned, a mistake we will never make again, this weekend was extremely traumatic for us as a family and will be taking time away to heal.”
The Ethics of Family Channels
The vilified mom has not posted another TikTok since, so it’s unclear if she really did learn her lesson. From her update video where she tries to downplay her actions, it doesn’t seem like she learned anything other than not to post videos of her son wrapped in plastic wrap. She kept defending her actions and downplaying and never admitted that what she did was wrong or abusive even though it clearly was.
Too many people in the comments were defending Savannah. I really hope they don’t have kids!
The lesson Savannah and other family influencers need to learn is to not exploit your children for views and clicks. I’m personally against putting kids on social media at all, but even if you’re ok with that, there should be limits like only posting pictures and videos of your child naturally doing things instead out of their own free will instead of forcing them to act for the camera or putting them in uncomfortable and disturbing situations for clout.
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Savannah isn’t the first family influencer to have CPS called on them and she won’t be the last. In 2022, a family account on Instagram posted a video of their 6-year-old running a marathon with them. He was crying in the video but his parents claimed that they kept asking him if he wanted to keep running and he insisted.
CPS was called because someone reported that the child was dragged after mile 13 to the finish line. The family was cleared of any wrongdoing and continue to run with their child and post him on social media.
Do you follow any family channels? Are you ok with them or do you think they end up taking things too far? Sound off in the comments!
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