No, your eyes are not deceiving you.
The following video really does feature a six-month old on waterskis.
By himself. Out on the open water.
The baby went viral this month after his dad, Robert Absher, shared a video to YouTube on Sunday, September 4 of his very young son breaking a world record.
In the video"s caption, Absher says his son is now the youngest person to ever waterski.
In the clip, we see Auburn showing off his skills on Falls Lake in Wake Forest, North Carolina.
He"s strapped in to a Coast Guard–approved life jacket and he"s going 150 feet while holding onto a unique railing that his dad built from PVC piping.
His mom, Heather, is also running alongside Auburn the entire time.
But these facts weren"t enough to assuage the Internet.
Users have come out in full force against the parents, aghast that they put their baby in this position.
“Parents should be charged with child endangerment,” Tweeted one individual, while another warned:
“Good way to break your kids neck.”
Robert is a competitive wakeboarder, however, and has told Us Weekly that critics shouldn’t be so quick to judge.
They don"t know all the details.
“We practiced before taking him out on the water,” the 34-year-old tells the tabloid, adding:
“We put him on the ski for the first time in the living room. We just let him stand there … and then I started moving him around real slow.”
But Auburn isn"t wearing a helmet.
“The vest he was wearing has head protection on the back,” Robert says. “And with me pulling him at the speed we were going, he never would have been able to fall forward.”
What do you think? Did the parents take all necessary precautions here?
Even so, was it really worth the risk, just to break some random world record?
Sound off in the Comments section below after watching the following video.
