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Is 'Swinging Baby' Video Anything to Cry About?

By Brendan McKenna

Nathan Thornburgh, a DadWagon reporter who also writes about Russia for Time magazine, last week pulled back the curtains to reveal the woman behind "Baby Yoga with Lena Fokina," a video-gone-viral that initially was widely regarded as a hoax and that was later pulled from YouTube, which deemed it too disturbing even for its seasoned, seen-it-all viewers. In the DadWagon interview, Fokina explains the rationale for what Thornburgh describes as a "lariat-like twirling of a tiny infant" -- a practice that some online commenters have derided with terms such as "wacked" and "batsh*t crazy." Asked one such commenter: "Is russian society so lax in protecting its children that they don't track down and prosecute this woman for child endangerment and neglect?" Instead, it seems that quite the opposite has occurred. In answer to Thornburgh's question as to whether Fokina has "had any legal problems" due to her practices, which she calls "dynamic gymnastics," Fokina says, "I never have. I love people." Fokina's baby exercises apparently stem from the beliefs of one Igor Charkovsky, who has long espoused childbirth practices and child-rearing systems that, depending on whom you talk to, fall somewhere along the continuum between tough love and waterboarding. (In...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on January 24, 2011 (boomark / email).