Pictures of a six-year-old running a marathon in the Cincinnati area have sparked backlash against the child’s parents and the company that sponsored the race after they were posted on the parents’ social media.
Kami and Ben Crawford, who run accounts on Instagram and YouTube documenting their family’s outdoor activities, posted the photos Sunday of their family running the Flying Pig marathon together. These posts quickly drew hundreds of comments expressing concern for the child’s health and safety.
“A six-year-old does not understand what embracing misery is,” said Kara Goucher, a two-time Olympic long-distance runner. tweeted. “A six-year-old who ‘fights physically’ does not realize they have a right to stop and should.”
Crawfords did not immediately respond to email questions.
Crawfords, parents of six aged 6 to 20, routinely post videos to their more than 12,000 Instagram followers and nearly 50,000 YouTube subscribers telling about their lives with their children, who participate in ambitious running and hiking trips, including hiking in the Appalachian Trail.
Family-focused social media channels have been popular for more than a decade and have often spawned criticism of parents and concern for children. Some family videos have shown young children in emotionally stressful situations, which have occasionally prompted action by the authorities.
A YouTube spokesman said Crawford’s previous videos of their 6-year training for the Cincinnati marathon did not violate any of its rules.
Crawfords’ marathon poster only started getting attention in the days after the marathon, especially around an Instagram post that said their son “was physically struggling and would take a break and sit every three minutes.” The Crawfords wrote that they promised the Pringles if their son “kept moving” after 7 hours. According to Crawford’s Instagram post, the family took 8 hours and 35 minutes to finish the race with their youngest child. They said in Instagram comments that they plan to release footage of the race on their YouTube channel.
The Crawfords have since defended their decision to run with their child and wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday that they allowed him to run the entire marathon “after begging to join us.”
“We asked him several times if he would stop and he was VERY aware that his preference was to continue,” the notice reads. “We saw no signs of heat exhaustion or dehydration and complied with his request to continue.”
While physical activity is encouraged at all ages, a 2003 article in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine said that children should not run long distances because they are not fully physically developed. Research published in the National Library of Medicine in 2010 suggests that children who run long distances may have greater potential for injury.
The organization behind the marathon, Pig Works, issued a statement calling the exception Crawfords “not the best practice.”
Iris Simpson Bush, president of Pig Works, wrote in an email statement that it was her decision to allow the entire Crawford family to attend, including making an exception for the 6-year-old. The event is for adults ages 18 and up, and in the future, Bush said the age limit would be strictly enforced.
“This decision was not made easily because the father was determined to run the race with his young child regardless,” Bush wrote. “They had done it like bandits in previous years before we had any knowledge and we knew he would probably do it again.”
The term “bandits” is used to describe people who participate in official races without registering. In a Facebook post Sunday, Ben Crawford wrote that most of his children have run a marathon for minors with the help of race organizers, specifically Bush. One year Crawford wrote that his daughter, then 6, was visiting a doctor before a race. This year, Crawford wrote in the same Facebook post that Bush “said not to worry about the doctor’s visit because we seemed ‘prepared’.”
A spokesman for Pig Works said Crawford’s Facebook post about Bush was “inaccurate.”
The backlash is not the first time that videos from Crawfords have received attention. In a 2018 video while the Crawfords were on the Appalachian Trail, Ben and Kami said child protection agents were waiting for them as they left the trail during a snowstorm. After talking to the children, the CPS took no action against the Crawford family.
“In a way, this is kind of our worst nightmare fear, government intervention in taking your kids away and losing control,” Ben said in the video.
Goucher told NBC News that she stands by her tweet but is in conflict with the backlash that Crawfords receives as she thinks they are loving parents.
“I’m not going to change my mind,” Goucher said of young children unfit to run marathons. She said she supports families running together but wish they had run one mile instead of 26.2 miles. In a follow-up tweet, Goucher wrote: “I do not question motivation or say it is bad parenting. But as an Olympic athlete, I promise you it is not good for the child.”