Dad defends video showing his toddler playing with a 13-foot python
There are plenty of people happy to butt into the lives of parents and tell them how to raise their kids. And there are even those who think it’s dangerous to have any kind of pet in the house around very young ones.
But parents who know they need to keep an eye on those interactions and have good, loyal animals know that they can just roll their eyes and move along.
Jamie Guarino, however, had to explain why he was letting his daughter Alyssa play with their pet.
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But that’s because the White Lake Michigan man’s pal isn’t cute and furry – it’s a 13-foot Burmese python named Nay-Nay.
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Ok, so we get the alarm here. But to be fair that’s because all we know about pythons are that they can unhinge their jaws and eat some of the world’s fiercest creatures. Once you see something swallow and alligator or read a story about someone finding a human body in its digestive system, you tend to make assumptions that it isn’t something you’d want around.
But Guarino had raised Nay-Nay since he was a baby the size of a rubber band. And to some extent, those of us who love our pets fluffy and with legs have to accept that they’re just not everyone’s cup of tea.
In fact, the family has quite a few snakes.
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The real problem was that Guarino had posted a video of Nay-Nay and Alyssa in 2015 showing the girl when she was just 14 months old (she was 3 when the video came out). Nay-Nay is slithering all over the toddler.
It’s pretty normal for people to worry about a situation like that, though the act in question took place years earlier.
“When people see this clip they mostly react with fear or negativity. And I don’t understand why.” Guarino told his local ABC affiliate news channel. “This is an embedded fear, and I think people are brainwashed.”
And it’s true. Even if we learned that they were interesting reptiles, TV shows, videos, and books instilled a fear of the animals in us in the end.
Pythons don’t sit around eating all day, but most of us don’t know what they do.
It turns out they’re pretty chill (though that doesn’t mean you have to go find out first-hand).
“I was trying to show that snakes are not evil creatures, they can be a loving pet despite their bad reputation,” Guarino said.
Guarino didn’t just upload the video to be sensational. He’s been handling snakes since he was 16 and he and his older daughter Krista, who was 10 at the time the video came out, even have their own YouTube channel called SnakeHuntersTV (they have an Instagram page too if you’re interested!).
There, you can see them handling snakes and other reptiles.
Over the 5 years since the video was re-posted on YouTube by Barcroft TV, the comments have gone from horrified to more understanding. But in the beginning, there was an uproar as people called for the family to be investigated.
And there were more than a few nasty and completely inappropriate comments.
However, no one filed a complaint, and without a formal complaint, what is there to investigate?
Guarino asked people to try and watch the video with a different perspective, but as we all know, some folks are just not capable of doing that.
“To those of you who might see this video as irresponsible or dangerous, please take a minute. Don’t judge based on fear or something you don’t understand. Snakes can be, and are, loving animals.”
The Oakland Free Press reported that Oakland County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Paul Walton had started an investigation into whether the child was in danger or was being abused in any way based on the video. Oddly enough, he cited incidents of dogs, such as pitbulls, of attacking children – something completely irrelevant.
It appears that the extent of the actions taken by authorities was to inform Human Services of the issue and ask them to investigate. It’s unclear if they did, but there’s no indication Guarino ever had any legal or custody issues when it came to Nay-Nay and his girls.
He and Krista and still happily making videos together! And Alyssa is a snake-lover herself.
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And while some of us still feel like letting a python slither on your toddler isn’t a great idea, the truth is it’s really none of our business unless we have a real reason to believe someone is in danger.
We’ll be looking at pythons a little bit differently after watching some of those SnakeHuntersTV videos.
If you’re interested in seeing Guarino’s original footage, scroll down below.
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Source: ABC 7 News, The Oakland Press, truly via YouTube, SnakeHuntersTV via YouTube, @snakehunterstv via Instagram, BBC News