Parents defend video prank that left their son in tears

A pair of prank-loving parents are defending a harsh practical joke they played on their son after claims of child abuse.

Parents Mike and Heather Martin of Baltimore, Maryland say their family prank videos are all in good fun.

The couple have received backlash toward a clip posted on Wednesday that shows their son Cody, nine, in tears, reports Daily Mail.

Mum, Heather, explains in the video (which had over 400,000 views), Cody had already gotten in trouble for spilling ink on his carpet in the past, and she decided to trick him by spraying disappearing ink on the floor of his room and blaming him.

‘Get your f**king a** up here!’ she screams at the beginning of the brutal six-minute gag. ‘What the f**k did you do?’

What the hell is that,’ yells the dad, who posts the prank videos on YouTube as DaddyOFive.

‘I didn’t do that,’ the bespectacled young boy pleads. ‘I don’t have anything with ink or whatever this is.’

Cody’s denials only send his parents into further fury, as they bawl out the boy.

‘You’re writing a thousand sentences,’ dad Mike yells. ‘I’m gonna have to sell all your Pokemon stuff!’

The bewildered boy breaks down in tears as the prank drags on, before Heather finally reveals that she sprayed the disappearing ink on the floor.

‘It’s just a prank, brah,’ the dad tells the stunned boy. ‘You guys got pranked hard.’

The ridiculous prank attracted criticism from many who viewed the screaming, cursing parents as child abusers.

‘It was just a flat-out horrendous thing to do to children,’ wrote a columnist for PhillyVoice, condemning the video. ‘The parents should be ashamed of themselves.’

‘This is how we run our house, this is our family,’ Mike blasted back in an epic 20-minute response video posted on Easter Sunday and titled BLOCKING ALL THE HATERS.

‘We were being investigated already for the YouTube channel and nothing was found,’ his wife revealed in the same video. ‘You’re looking in the wrong place for child abusers.’

As for her foul language, Heather said: ‘They hear worse curse words on music and TV than I say.’

The parents said the children pranked them back just as hard, and had final say over whether the gags ended up posted to YouTube.

Asked by his mother whether he felt traumatized by the disappearing ink gag, Cody responded: ‘I don’t even know what that word means, but no.’

‘If they don’t like our channel why do they watch us and give us more views?’ the boy said. ‘Why do they take all the time to comment?’

As the backlash mounted though, the family was forced to post a statement of apology on their Facebook page early Tuesday.

‘We deeply apologize for your feelings of concern. We DO NOT condone child abuse in any way, shape or form,’ the statement read.

The youtube account has since been made private.

The couple have said, “This has gone way to far over FAKE YouTube pranks. We are sorry and we will change our style but you are putting our family in real danger. You are putting the kids that you think you are helping in real danger.”

Do you think they went too far?

Share your comments below.

Image via youtube

19 Comments

- - mom94125 said
  - 10 Oct 2017
    5:26 pm
yeah a bit too far but they thought that it was a good idea to post this on youtube smh

- - mom101628 said
  - 05 May 2017
    10:53 pm
Have head that the children have been removed from these parents. Wonder if the damage will be lifelong, though.

- - june11 said
  - 03 May 2017
    3:13 pm
Tehnically it IS child abuse under the banner of emotional or physological abuse. If they yelled at him it can be classed as Verbal Abuse even if “bad” words aren’t used. This is what was taught to year reception in at least one Primary School in the late 1980s – early 90s in metropolitan Adelaide. They were also taught that kids have rights – that if they didn’t want to what they were asked to do by their parents they didn’t have to. I personally know two children who were taught this 2 years apart. Parents aren’t allowed to physically hold their child to stop them walking out of home and going where they want to as youngsters who shouldn’t be allowed out alone at all. When they do something wrong the first question asked is “where were the parents”? I can tell you a lot of parents were very angry about this and as a group asked for a meeting with the school principal and teachers involved. Had they not agreed I think there would have been a big protest about it.

- - tessie said
  - 28 Apr 2017
    10:52 am
I can understand the pranking up to a point. Maybe if they hadn’t been yelling and swearing the criticism may not have been so bad. I’ve done this to my sons but have stopped the moment they look like they are getting upset. You can only take a prank so far but I wouldn’t call it child abuse.

- - ella12 said
  - 26 Apr 2017
    4:06 pm
Stupidity, immaturity and swearing at the child doesn’t really make for a good role model now does it?

- - mom101628 said
  - 21 Apr 2017
    3:52 pm
This is just stupid – just shows what social media exploits.

- - buntelli said
  - 21 Apr 2017
    1:01 pm
The problem is it wasn’t just this video where you watched this type of treatment; there were many, MANY, if not all, videos where this child is the brunt of their family fury. Other uploads show the dad instructing one of his sons to slap his daughter in the face which he does after much coercing from the father (can we call him that?) Then there’s uploads where the dad happily films as the older sons (who behave much like the (?) father) as they beat the boy up. There was not one positive upload of theirs – most of the time the cruelty is directed towards Cody. What’s worse, if you search “cody gets….” on YouTube, you have many searches like Codygetsbullied, Codygetsthebelt, Codygetsbashed, and sadly, they are all linked to DaddyOFive’s site. What’s worse, what sort of people would subscribe to this kind of cruelty. There is talk out there that the two red headed children were taken from the real mother (it is the stepmother you see in the uploads who clearly has mental health problems) and currently reside in Maryland and because of laws, the real mother has been having difficulties getting her two children back. I really hope something is done to put these children in to a loving family.

- - Ellen said
  - 21 Apr 2017
    3:56 am
Severe screaming and cursing at your child can be quite damaging if you ask me, think the parents underestimate the impact of that on their child.

- - rachel1970 said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    7:33 pm
whoa, that’s no prank, that’s just cruel, never mind the language used. Shocking. (although I wouldn’t go so far as to say child abuse)

- - mom81879 said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    5:17 pm
I thought it might have been funny being a prank. But no, it’s not funny at all, I feel really sorry for that poor boy 🙁

- - mom109199 said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    4:56 pm
I haven’t seen the video, but it sounds very harsh to me. I would say it is definitely child abuse.

- - mom93821 said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    4:36 pm
Not a video I would watch or want to watch for so many reasons. Certainly not my type of ‘humour’?

- - rovermum said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    4:20 pm
Hmmm, I don’t find this funny at all. I think it has gone a bit too far. Not sure what this teaches their son.

- - carrie-anne said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    3:24 pm
The parents do not know what child abuse means, I wander if a teacher made the same prank they would of been straight up to the school. Having a laugh with children is one thing but pulling a prank on a child is bulling. I think the parents need to go on a parenting class with social services.

- - joeyyy said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    2:35 pm
Poor boy.. I didn’t see the video but that’s horrible! No one wants to be yelled at by their parents so it’s not funny :'( he would’ve been so upset

- - nealsq said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    1:55 pm
i didn’t see the clip but sounds a little over the top

- - Lizbef said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    1:43 pm
The video is disgusting and not at all funny, other videos of theirs are just as vile and shows the poor boy being mistreated

- - mom70876 said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    1:24 pm
Yelling at your kids for a prank….. THat’s just low. It is child abuse. We need parenting classes in school!

- - mom112217 said
  - 20 Apr 2017
    1:11 pm
Yes l do believe they went way too far!