Pediatricians Rate Jacko's Parenting Skills
Feb. 13 -- Pediatricians who watched Michael Jackson in the new documentary, Living with Michael Jackson panned the pop star dad's baby-feeding technique and his practice of masking his children in public.
The uproar over Jackson's behavior as a dad began last November, after he was seen dangling his youngest child, Prince Michael II, the baby he calls "Blanket," from a balcony five stories up as fans watched below. British journalist Martin Bashir sat down to talk about the incident with Jackson the very next morning as part of the documentary.
Jackson covered the infant's head with a chiffon scarf to block his face from the cameras and appeared nervous as he bounced the crying baby up and down on his knees during the feeding. As footage of the feeding aired during the documentary, Bashir commented about the footage.
"Jackson's behavior was beginning to alarm me," Bashir said.
He wasn't the only one.
‘It Was Frightening’
The balcony dangling incident could cause an infant a tremendous amount of trauma, one expert said.
"It was frightening," said Dr. Bruce Roseman, a family practioner from New York. "It's child endangerment. No one would ever take their child and dangle them out of a running car, so the idea that you would do it over a balcony is very frightening," he said.
Dr. Laura Popper, a pediatrician from New York, said that she didn't find Jackson's bottle-feeding techniques to be "alarming," as Bashir did. He was just clumsy, she said.
"He's not doing anything inappropriate, he's just not real good at it," Popper said. "Michael Jackson is not going to be my poster father, nor do I think any other celebrity should have to fill that role," she said.
But if the balcony-dangling incident happened in New York, social services would have launched an investigation, she said.
"If they were my patients this would have to be reported to the state," Popper said. "That is behavior which is certainly dangerous," she said.
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