A father has come under fire on social media after letting his "hungry" nine-year-old daughter spend six hours trying to open a tin of beans.
Per The Daily Star, podcaster and producer John Roderick took to his now-deleted Twitter account to detail how he'd been doing a jigsaw puzzle when his nine-year-old daughter came up to him and told him she was hungry.
As a joke, he presented her with a can of beans and a can opener and told her that she wouldn't be eating until she worked out how to use it.
Roderick wrote:
"So, yesterday my daughter (9) was hungry and I was doing a jigsaw puzzle so I said over my shoulder 'make some baked beans.' She said, 'How?' like all kids do when they want YOU to do it, so I said, 'Open a can and put it in pot.'
"She brought me the can and said 'Open it how?' So I said, 'How do you think this works?' She studied it and applied it to the top of the can, sideways."
Roderick added: "She struggled for a while and with a big, dramatic sigh said, 'Will you please just open the can?' Apocalypse Dad was overjoyed: a Teaching Moment just dropped in my lap…
"Eventually she had it all figured out. She had the placement of the tool, she could turn the handle and the can would spin (we were down on the floor by this point), but the 'kachunk' of puncturing the lid still eluded us. We’d been at it for HOURS on and off. We were hungry. [sic]"
However, a number of Twitter users seemed to find the stunt cruel, accusing Roderick of child abuse and dubbing him: "Bean Dad."
For instance, one person wrote: "I’m a teacher and this is absolutely horrible teaching. There is no intellectual benefit to intentionally frustrating your student."
"You could’ve shown her how to do it 1 time and she would’ve gained the same knowledge The pleasure you took at her struggle borders on sadistic."
Per The Daily Star, in a follow-up post composed before he deleted his account, Roderick wrote: "The only thing people are touchier about than parenting style is dog ownership."
