There’s a post from the dad (pasted below) where he talks about how the aid tables were closed by the time they got to them, so so much for the RD’s excuse of providing on-course support.
Also not mentioned in any of these articles - the kid was bribed to keep going by the parents. They promised him Pringles at the end. Sort of contradicts the “he was free to stop at any time” statement.
From the dad’s FB:
“[he] knew they usually hand out Pringles around mile 20. He was struggling physically and wanted to take a break and sit every three minutes. After 7 hours, we finally got to mile 20 only to find an abandoned table and empty boxes. He was crying and we were moving slow so I told him I’d buy him two sleeves if he kept moving. I had to promise him another sleeve to get him in the family pic at the finish line. Today I paid him off.”
This whole this is just so gross. Even this short post from the dad: his young child was clearly upset and in pain, but according to what the dad said in the new articles, the burden was on HIM, the six-year-old child, to decide to stop when he knew the rest of his family was going to keep going. That’s a lot of pressure for a little kid and it seems like since he would have been the only one who didn’t finish it would have been almost alienating for him. The dad, the PARENT in the situation, should have actually had his child’s best interests at heart and made the decision for him to stop (obviously even better if he never started, but I digress). But he didn’t do that because his kid is, I don’t know…his product, almost? Does that make sense??
And then - bribing the kid to keep going with Pringles. Another bribe to get him to take a picture, because the dad needs it for social media. It only works if the whole family is in the picture. Even the phrase “I paid him off.” He is your child, he’s not your employee.
And it’s accompanied by a photo of the kid with a huge smile holding his Pringles. It’s so manipulative on the part of the parents that they know they can take advantage of their small kid who really doesn’t know any better, just so they can get some social media views.
The RD didn’t do anything admirable here IMO. She enabled these attention wh*res and needs to be fired.
I also saw a post from the dad saying something like “CPS has investigated us for doing car crazier things” - my dude, that is not the flex that you think it is.
but the decision by the race director is inexcusable. Tell them no and if they bandit the race you kick them off or at the very least you have the legal cover that you told them no and warned against running it anyway.
