This thing made me cringe, and the comments defending it as all in good fun are making me cringe even more. I'm just glad to see that there are quite a few people who see this the way I do.
This was NOT how you make happy family memories that your kids will laugh about in years to come. This is how you send them a message that "Dad is a mean-spirited bully who thinks it's fun to make me miserable." And this is not okay.
Neither my husband or I ever did anything to intentionally embarrass our daughter. It wasn't something we made a big point of avoiding or even consciously thought about. It just never occurred to either of us to do such a thing, much less that it would be funny or entertaining. Maybe because neither of us had parents who did that, either.
That dad wasn't having fun WITH his kids. He was having fun AT THEIR EXPENSE. That's not a cool thing to do to anybody, and it's a terrible thing to do with your own vulnerable, defenseless children who can't stand up for themselves or fight back. He's teaching those kids that making fun of people IS cool, and that it's okay to use it as a means to exert power over others. I wouldn't be surprised if they turn out to be "mean girls" who make themselves feel important by bullying anyone who's different from them in school. I hope they don't, but if they did, they'd just be acting out what their dad taught them.
So yeah, I found this disturbing, not funny. And before anyone posts to accuse me of lacking a sense of humor, this is not about having a sense of humor. It's about empathy, which Merriam-Webster* defines as "understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another." When I look at that video, my vicarious experience of the feelings of those kids crowds out everything else, and the last thing I feel like doing is laughing.
*https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy
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