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Bean Dad Twitter backlash sparks text message test

A furious Twitter debate over an important life skill has sparked a flurry of text messages to ask the question: What would your dad do?

Hannah PaineHannah Paine
2 min read
January 6, 2021 - 1:50PM
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It all started over a can of beans.

That’s right, Twitter’s biggest debate of 2021 (so far) hasn’t been about politics or masks.

Instead it’s been about a can of baked beans and, more specifically, what is the right way to teach your kids how to open them.

Earlier this week US man John Roderick faced a fierce backlash after he took to Twitter to share how he had let his nine-year-old daughter spend hours trying to open a can of beans in order to teach her.

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The Twitter thread, which has since been deleted, sparked a furious backlash. Picture: Twitter
The Twitter thread, which has since been deleted, sparked a furious backlash. Picture: Twitter

Mr Roderick, who has since deleted his Twitter account, recounted in a series of tweets how he had been horrified to discover his daughter didn’t know how to use a can opener.

He instructed her to “study the parts, study the can” and left her for the next six hours to try and open the can of baked beans.

But hours later and his daughter still hadn’t worked out how to use it, Mr Roderick wrote, describing her tears and frustration in detail.

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People were furious at how upset his daughter had seemed. Picture: Twitter
People were furious at how upset his daughter had seemed. Picture: Twitter

While Mr Roderick had intended the Twitter thread to be a funny parenting anecdote, plenty of people didn’t see it that way.

Nicknaming him “Bean Dad”, Mr Roderick was slammed for his “ridiculous” lesson, with people arguing it would have been much easier for him to have simply shown his daughter how to use a can opener.

Others even accused him of child abuse.

The backlash escalated when racist and anti-Semitic tweets penned by Mr Roderick resurfaced, prompting him to issue an apology for them and his “poorly told” parenting anecdote.

“I framed the story with me as the asshole dad because that’s my comedic persona and my fans and friends know it’s ‘a bit’,” he said in a statement.

“I was ignorant, insensitive to the message that my ‘pedant dad’ comedic persona was indistinguishable from how abusive dads act, talk and think.”

THE ‘BEANCHDEL TEST’

Just when it seemed like the Bean Dad saga was all done and dusted writer Caroline Moss decided to put his parenting lesson to the test.

“If I was eight and didn’t know how to open a can with a can opener, how would you suggest I learn,” a screenshot of a text exchange between Caroline and her dad shows her asking.

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“Take a can, an opener, start the opening, let you finish. Give you another can let you start yourself. Help if necessary,” Caroline’s dad replied.

Soon others were sharing their responses from their dads, which ranged from everything from doing it for you to throwing away the can and going out for dinner instead.


So, what now? Time to text your dad and put him to the Beanchdel test.

Originally published as Bean Dad Twitter backlash sparks text message test

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Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/bean-dad-twitter-backlash-sparks-text-message-test/news-story/8e16ed13f0cfbd8502c65c487d5ba7cb