Unsplash | Meghan Holmes

Mom Lets Her Baby Lick Dirty Shopping Carts In Hopes Of Boosting His Immune System

The world is full of controversial parenting choices.

Take the celebs, for instance. The Big Bang Theory alum, Mayim Bialik, caught flack for breastfeeding her son until he was four.

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard came under fire for locking their kids in their room at night.

Regular folks also have some controversial methods. Just wait until you read about this one mom who lets her son lick dirty shopping carts...

Meet Alice Bender.

She's a 22-year-old mom who has been stirring up controversy on TikTok with her unorthodox parenting tactics.

Under her account, @comingupfern, the devoted vegan has gotten users up in arms with everything from co-sleeping with her son since birth to claiming that baby formula should be illegal.

Back in January, she went viral for her passionate views on anti-bedtime and anti-crib beliefs.

In her TikTok video posted on January 12, she called cribs "baby jails" and said that most nurseries aren't even baby-friendly.

She also said that she doesn't enforce a bedtime on her son, Fern.

She went to the extent of saying that forcing a child to sleep is "inhumane."

"Imagine if your partner locked you in a container you couldn't get out of and forced you to sleep when you're not tired," she said.

She went on to call this "abuse" and a relationship you'd want to get out of.

As you can imagine, a lot of people disagreed with Bender's views on sleep routines.

"If this isn't a joke, this country is doomed," wrote one person. "OMG, I cannot with this ... " wrote someone else. "Good luck, sweetie."

Others emphasized how babies actually need structured sleep routines to thrive.

It's not just users who disagree with Bender's beliefs — science discredits it as well.

The Public Health Agency of Canada, for example, warns against co-sleeping, which is when a family shares a bed with an infant.

That's because it can lead to sudden infant deaths.

Months later, Alice has gone viral *again*.

This time, for sharing that babies should be able to stick practically whatever they want in their mouths.

It all started when she answered a recent question from a follower: "Why do you let [your baby] eat sand?"

"Why I let my exclusively breastfed baby eat sticks, rocks, dirt, sand, and unsanitized shopping carts," she began.

The video then cuts to show Fern sticking pretty much all of these items into his mouth, including the unsanitized shopping cart.

From there, she gave her unorthodox explanation.

"In the last 100 years, the allopathic industry has taken the world by storm," she said.

"This did not happen by accident, it happened after a series of billion dollar campaigns intended to shift the public’s perspective on health."

In other words, she believes that germs will help boost her son's immune system.

While she isn't wrong (science has proven that exposure to germs *does* help strengthen our immune systems), she's forgetting one major thing.

And that's that bad bacteria also exist, as well as choking hazards whenever her son does something like put a stick or rock into his tiny mouth.

"I do not fear bacteria. In fact, I welcome it. I trust nature and my baby," she said.

Like all of Bender's videos, she had a LOT of people beg to differ.

"my dog does that exact same thing," one wrote. "When you have to take your baby to the ER and they find rocks and sticks stuck in it's body," added another.

One person pointed out the risk of parasites.

"So parasites aren't real?" one person asked. "Might as well let it drink toilet water," added another.

There were some people who backed up the mom with comments such as, "at least the kid gunna have a good immune system."

Where do you stand? Let us know in the comments!

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