A mum-of-two sparked a heated debate on the internet after revealing that she put Apple AirTags on her children to keep track of them and even trained them to come to her when she pressed buttons.
Vada Stevens, a young mother-of-two from South Carolina, faces backlash after she revealed her parenting methods on her TikTok account.
The 24-year-old took to her TikTok and shared a video with her over 1 million fans showing her putting a button on their kids and saying she has trained her daughters ‘like dogs’ to come to their mama whenever she presses the button and even put AirTags on them so she keeps an eye on them.
“I saw a TikTok about a mom who puts Apple AirTags in bracelets on her kids, and I thought it was the coolest thing,” Vada said in her (now-deleted) video. “You can find them on Amazon, and you can track them and make a beeping noise and you can train your kids to come when they hear the beeping noise.”
The young mama also exhibited her methods by pressing the button and watching her daughters, Stella, 4, and Serena, 2 come running towards her.
“You beeped for us,” the girls said. “What did you need?”
“Today we are dog training,” Stevens captioned her video.
The video amassed over a million views on the video-sharing platform, and hundreds of people commented on it – while a few praised the mum, who is currently pregnant with her third child, many trashed the idea and criticized her for treating her children like animals.
“Kids are not animals stop tracking them with tracking devices wtf dude? Just look for them normally!!” one wrote.
“Yikes this is scary!” a second said.
“This has to be a joke,” a third added.
“Are you kidding, they are beautiful and they are your daughters, why would your treat them like dogs and track your kids like that? For God’s sake woman let sense come to you,” a fourth commented.
Following the backlash, Stevens spoke to Today for an interview and defended her methods by saying she currently homeschools her daughters. Still, they visit their grandmother’s house quite often and go to the parks and movies with their dad. So, she needs to know what her kids are up to when she is not around.
“I am extremely paranoid about everything safety. I thought the bracelets were genius,” she said. “My two-year-old doesn’t pay attention and runs off so if she happens to get lost, [the AirTag] is a perfect way to find her.”
“It just takes one second to look away from your kid and they’re off in a crowd somewhere.”
Addressing the criticism she received after sharing the video, Vada said she is not embarrassed about her parenting methods and will ensure her kids are safe and protected no matter what people say.
“In this day and age, you can’t ever be too protective. People think I’m a crazy mom — one even said I needed to sign my child up for therapy. I’m doing this to prevent my children from ever being taken or lost. I’m going to do my best to know exactly where they are.”
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
I think it’s a great idea. To each their own . They are your children nd you do whatever you have to foe them to be safe. Who cares what anyone else thinks or says ..too bad these weren’t around when my kids were little.