Here I am, with almost a dozen important ethics issues languishing thanks to my (I hope) temporary incapacity, picking the least consequential of them all to begin EA’s blogging day. Go figure.
Colombian rapper Maluma (whom I had never heard of before) halted his Mexico City concert to admonish an audience member who had brought a baby, presumably hers, to the event. He was in the middle of a song, in fact, when he noticed the infant in the audience and called out the woman.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to bring a 1-year-old baby to a concert where the decibels are this fucking high?” he asked. “That baby doesn’t even know what it’s doing here! Next time, protect their ears or something. For real. It’s heavy. It’s your responsibility.”
“You’re waving them around like they’re a toy,” Maluma continued. “That baby doesn’t want to be there, for real. I’m telling you with all love and respect, now that I’m a father… would never bring them to a concert. For the next time, be a bit more aware.”
Good for him. I can’t seem to find any accounts of what the woman did following her reprimand; she should have left the concert. Although Maluma’s actions got substantial applause from the audience, many on social media criticized the rapper for “shaming” the woman. These are the people who do not comprehend the shared societal duty of maintaining ethical social norms. Maluma was following the ethical duties to confront, to intervene when wrongful conduct can be prevented or mitigated, and the duty to fix the problem. He also demonstrated clear ethical priorities. A musical number can be started over; a child’s hearing, once damaged, may never recover.
“Every mother knows what she has to do with her child. If not, they should limit the capacity to a certain age. What’s the point in putting her through that in front of so many people?” one person wrote on TikTok. Moron. Obviously this mother does not know how to responsibly raise a child. I hate to imagine what other ways she is placing her baby at risk. What’s the point? The point is to intervene in the best interests of the child and to send a message to other irresponsible parents that if they bring infants to ear-splitting concerts they risk public embarrassment too.
Another dolt posted, “Was it necessary to embarrass her while he was receiving applause?” In a word, yes, it was absolutely necessary. I’d love to ask these critics what would justify, in their world view of ethical conduct, the rapper stopping a song to confront an irresponsible mother. If the mother was forcing the baby to guzzle rum? If the mother was burning the kid with cigarettes? Strangling him?
Ethics Alarms 
“Here I am…picking the least consequential of them all to begin EA’s blogging day. Go figure.”
I disagree that this is the least consequential. Every day, parents make choices regarding the raising of their children that have significant impacts on our culture, our safety and the livability of our public spaces.
It begins with a woman who doesn’t want to miss a concert because she has a baby.
“I can’t seem to find any accounts of what the woman did following her reprimand“
Something tells me she will be righteously indignant, though basking in all the attention her social media feeds are most certainly providing.
PWS
Nah. She’s probably thinking, “Cool. Maluma talked to me! I’m special.”
Narcissist is what narcissist does.
jvb
Periodic reminder that shame and shaming are good. The voices that explicit condemn shaming as inherently bad, both are hypocritical as they are engaging in a kind of shaming themselves AND they are ethics villains happily encouraging culture to swirl into the toilet bowl.
Coincidentally, in Cincinnati yesterday, E. Raducanu asked the umpire to remove a crying baby from her match with A. Sabalenka.
What type of parent brings a baby to a tennis match, and in that kind of heat? Or to a theatre or another performance?
Sadly, we know the type.
My starting position when I hear about cases like this is always that the performer has an ethics conflict in all the publicity the grandstanding is sure to generate. It reminds me of Hamilton vs Mike Pence. I’m also generally inclined to live and let live with respect to patients doing X with their babies.
There are risks of different types in different environments — concerts, supermarkets, daycares, nature hikes — that can be magnified or mitigated by the disposition and behaviour of parent and child alike — so I do think the right baby with the right precautions could be at that concert, no problem. And, depending on their stage of development, they could arguably get something out of it. Point is, no blanket judgments from me and I raise an eyebrow at Maluma presuming to know better than this mom.
Even so, despite there not being much more information I could find about this case, it sounds like the baby didn’t seem to be having a good time, so I agree mom should have taken action of some sort. I am also willing to give Maluma the benefit of the doubt. I still think it’s an open question whether shaming the woman like that was the best solution. (I’m not a loud concert guy — maybe it’s something staff should take care of?)
Full disclosure, I write this as a dad who took my 9-month old to our first footie match several months ago: West Ham v Nottingham Forest. I paid for 2 aisle seats, slapped headphones on him and was prepared to exit if he fussed. He enjoyed the commotion for half the time and had a good nap the other half, plus we got some great photos for his future wedding slideshow.