"Scientists" Say Babies Need Consent For Diaper Changes

In this episode, we dive into the viral Australian academic advice (from Deakin University researchers) that parents should ask babies for “consent” before changing their diapers. It sounds absurd on the surface—and we roast it hard—but we also steelman their perspective before tearing it apart.

We explore how this philosophy ties into extreme gentle parenting trends (no timeouts without consent? No punishments?), the misuse of “consent” as the sole argument against adult-minor relationships (spoiler: it’s not about consent; it’s about developmental stages and guardianship), and why removing natural threats/fears from kids’ lives might fuel modern anxiety epidemics.

From ritualized diaper changes that feel suspiciously fetish-adjacent, to using clinical terms like “vulva/penis/anus” on infants vs. fun family euphemisms like “doty” and “flippy,” we share our unfiltered parenting stories—including epic blowouts, bribery for potty training, and why our kids aren’t anxious wrecks despite (or because of) our pragmatic, authoritative style.

We also touch on Krampus, ancestral fear exposure, nursing home STDs, and why suburb-raised girls invent existential threats. Plus: a chaotic domestic tangent about poop smells, manga villains, and who’s making dinner.

If you’re tired of overthinking parenting and want a raw, evidence-based take on why kids actually need guardians (not mini-adults), this one’s for you.

Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be talking about children and consent and infants and consent uhoh.

And we are going to be using it went viral a while ago, this story where a leftist university specifically it was the Deacon University in Australia

suggested that you ask your baby consent before changing their diapers. And Simone is just sharing a story about changing Texas diapers.

So, you know, on, on topic here. But it’s, it comes off as ridiculous at face value. But I want to look at it from their eyes, not like the other people covering. I wanna see how they argue for it, why they think it’s important, right. And then I want to go from there to look at other instances in which parents and parental advocates have been advocating for.

Extreme consent searching from children before, like punishment and everything like that. And we saw this like in my Stephen Mullany debate where you know, like asking

Simone Collins: for consent for timeout,

Malcolm Collins: well they don’t, don’t do timeouts ‘cause a kid [00:01:00] wouldn’t consent to it. Right. You know, you know, it’s only gentle parenting.

Only nice parenting. And so I wanna go into this philosophy in its extremes, but I’m also gonna be arguing that a a lot of people have misunderstood. And I think where the concept of consent creeped into children’s, the literature and the concept of children needing consent, is that for whatever reason, the urban monoculture decided to use a lack of consent to argue why, you know, we do not have sex with minors.

And I actually think that that’s. Completely stupid. Like that is not why you don’t have sex with a minor consent. And I, I, I mean, I’ve argued this with animals where I point out that, you know, the reason we don’t have sex with animals isn’t that the animal can’t consent because we

Simone Collins: eat

Malcolm Collins: animals and we like raise them in a state of constant torture if you’re talking about veal or farm chicken or something like that.

Oh, goodness. And, and people protest that, but you know, they’re, they’re, they’re at the same time, they’re like, oh, consent, consent, consent, you know, is why we don’t [00:02:00] do it. It’s a disease risk with, with animals.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: There, that’s why a lot of cultures convergently evolved that particular belief.

But with children, I, I point out here that, okay, like you’ve got like a 15-year-old or something like that, right? Like, okay, a, a 15-year-old in terms of their cognition is. Well, more advanced than many elderly individuals, many mentally handicapped individuals. Sure. 15 year olds are actually fairly sharp.

They’re almost as

Simone Collins: smart as pigs.

Malcolm Collins: As pigs. I’m kidding. Okay. And I think even if you go back of it, I mean, I think even like 13 year olds and 12 year olds are fairly smart. Like smarter. I, I’d say that the average, like 13-year-old I talk to is smarter and more cognitively there than the average person I’m talking to in a nursing home.

Simone Collins: Oh, no. Like 100%. I mean, people in nursing homes on average are dealing with pretty severe cognitive decline. Plus they’re also super set in their ways, whereas people who are teens are in this [00:03:00] Right. Incredible position. But I mean, you could even argue that an 8-year-old is there because also the 8-year-old is unencumbered by all of the hormonal vicissitudes that a teenager has to endure.

So, but

Malcolm Collins: yeah, the, the point being is. Nobody, or very few people are arguing that people in nursing homes shouldn’t be having sex. That’s actually Oh, when people have like the most sex in like Yeah. People are like

Simone Collins: power to the people. Like Yeah. Split it up

Malcolm Collins: like this big thing of like people sleeping around a lot in like huge, yeah.

Simone Collins: STDs being a really big issue with nursing homes. Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: nursing homes. But I, I, I think there’s very few people, even a lot of lefties that would argue that like a 13-year-old should be sleeping around. And so it’s, it’s clearly even for them, they understand intuitively it isn’t a consent issue.

And this’ll be a lot of what I’m talking about in this piece. And I talked about it before, but I think it’s very important for people to, is it’s a stage of development issue. It’s at that stage of development. Are you expected to take you know, sort of [00:04:00] internal responsibility for the way you relate to rules, the way you relate to the world around you?

Are you essentially supposed to be living under a guardian or are you not? Like, is that the way your brain is structured?

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And when you’re living under a guardian, obviously the guardian has final say on the things you do and do not do. Right. The punishments, et cetera. And, and we’ll be arguing that you are cognitively sort of loaded to be living in this environment and to take an a, a younger person out of this environment.

Can actually be very damaging. And not just with a guardian, but I also think, and this is something that we do a lot with our parenting with, with, with fear, with uncertainty with this was all normal in an ancestral context and we removed this from people’s lives and I think did a lot of damage.

Huh. And you can see our video where we point out that you actually see, like, you know, when you’re looking at some rates of like mental health issues and stuff like that, you see them at higher rates in wealthier young girls than in like. Young girls who live in more urban or or less wealthy environments.

Mm-hmm. And that is [00:05:00] like, it’s a suburb girl thing, right? And, and I, I argue that that’s because their brain is, is, is trying to search for threats. And when you remove all of the threats from their lives, they begin to assign everything a threat. Like, well, Donald Trump is trying to. They put me in the breeding pins, right?

Like everybody, every guy who looks at