A pronatalist influencer dad has given a wild theory about why he thinks hitting children is good for them in the long term after slapping his little one in front of a journalist.
Malcolm Collins, 37, left a Guardian journalist “horrified” after he slapped his two-year-old son in the face while they dined at a restaurant in his hometown of Valley Forge, outside Philadelphia, on Saturday.
The boy, named Torsten Savage, slammed his foot on the table, causing it to wobble, and his influencer father walked up and punched him in the face so hard that it was recorded on the journalist’s recorder.
At the time, they had been talking about Elon Musk, a father of eleven children, who shares Malcolm’s enthusiasm for pronatalism, an ideology that promotes high birth rates. After hitting his son, he continued the conversation as if nothing had happened.
But the next day, Malcolm revealed to The Guardian article Detailing this interaction triggered a wave of calls to child welfare services from the concerned public.
A pronatalist influencer has explained why he believes punching his children in the face is good for them in the long term, based on his observations of wild tigers.
At the time, he justified the controversial parenting style to the journalist by drawing parallels with tigers and how they treat their misbehaving cubs.
He said he and his co-influencer wife Simone, 36, who is pregnant with their fourth child, watched as the feral cats reacted to the unruly kittens with a quick swipe of their paw. They tried it with their own children and found it very effective, he explained.
“I was just giving you context so you don’t think I’m abusive or something,” Malcolm told the reporter, who said the slap wasn’t “hard” but was loud enough to hear on his voice recording.
Malcolm’s explanation of the physical response did not satisfy some readers, who raised concerns with child protection officials.
“Several people called (child welfare services) about this,” Malcolm told the New York Post on Sunday. “There is now an active movement to take away our children.”
Malcolm Collins (pictured with his family), 37, left a Guardian journalist ‘horrified’ after he slapped his two-year-old son in the face while they dined at a restaurant in his hometown of Valley Forge , outside Philadelphia, on Saturday.
Malcolm said he and his co-influencer wife Simone, 36, watched as feral cats reacted to unruly kittens with a quick swipe of their paw. They tried it with their own children and found it very effective, he explained.
The Pennsylvania couple are leading proponents of the theory that large families are necessary for the future of civilization through their charity, The Pragmatist Foundation.
Known as pronatalism, the ideology promotes having a large brood of children as a means of coping with declining global birth rates, which its believers say will lead to the collapse of the economy as retirees eventually eclipse the working population.
The Collins couple have had to turn to child welfare services before due to their unconventional parenting style.
Malcolm told The Guardian they were called “because our children were wearing second-hand clothes and getting sick too often.”
‘This was when we had them in nursery; Of course, they were sick all the time and because they were seen playing outside without us being outside.
“It’s a closed, gated area that you can see from the house.”
“Almost all families with high fertility have had this happen,” he added. “The government says that if you raise your children in a different cultural context than ours, that is child abuse.”
The Pennsylvania couple are leading proponents of the theory that large families are necessary for the future of civilization through their charity, The Pragmatist Foundation.
Simone is currently pregnant with their fourth child, a girl they plan to name Industry Americus.
The Collins couple currently have three children and plan to have seven in total.
Malcolm and Simone Collins have three children: daughter Titan Invictus, six months, and sons Octavian George, four, and Torsten Savage, two. They use IVF to have children and hope to have seven children in total.
Simone is currently eight months pregnant with their fourth child, a girl they will name Industry Americus Collins. Both parents are also autistic, which they see as a strength.
When conceiving Titan Invictus, a name they chose because they feared a female name would be taken less seriously, they used genetic testing and embryo selection to eliminate genes linked to diseases such as obesity and depression.
It is one of the many reasons why the pronatalist movement is controversial, with many seeing it as a form of eugenics.
In fact, the Collinses have been called “hipster eugenicists,” a label they denounce.
“We don’t believe humanity can be perfected, we just want to give our children the best roll of the dice possible,” Simone told The Telegraph earlier this year.
In the photo: the Collins couple picking raspberries in a photograph shared on Instagram
Malcolm working at home in Pennsylvania with two of his three children.
Malcolm playing with his children at his family’s home in Pennsylvania
Preimplantation genetic testing is not regulated in the US, but there are several companies that test embryos for risks of certain conditions.
They include Genomic Prediction endorsed by Sam Altman, which the Collins couple used for their children’s health scores.
For what they call “the controversial stuff,” they took data from this company and employed a team of scientists who say they can predict the likelihood of an embryo being happy in the future.
On the topic of pronatalism, Malcolm said Tesla czar Elon Musk, 52, has been “fantastic” for the movement, describing him as “our version of being the king.”
“I mean, having the most powerful and richest person in the world champion your cause helps a lot,” she told The Guardian moments before slapping her little boy.
‘Within this time period, he’s our version of being the king, or something like that. He’s to some extent disconnected from…’ Malcolm said before pausing momentarily to punch the two-year-old.
“What Elon represents, to a large extent, I support,” he continued later. “Our policies are very aligned.”
The father wore matching red pajamas with his children and wife in photographs shared on Instagram
The Pennsylvania couple are leading proponents of the theory that large families are necessary for the future of civilization through their charity, The Pragmatist Foundation.
The couple has become the face of the pronatalist movement in the United States.
Musk’s ex-girlfriend and mother of three of his children follows Malcolm’s wife, Simone, on X.
The richest man in the world has had 11 children with three different women. ‘If people don’t have more children, civilization will crumble. Mark my words,” Musk said at a business summit in December 2021.
He described demographic collapse as “the biggest danger” to humanity, even more so than climate change. Musk even went so far as to say that Japan, where birth rates are the lowest in the world, will “eventually cease to exist.”
The tech mogul has six children with his first wife Justine Wilson, whom he divorced in 2008, three with his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Canadian musician Grimes, and twins with his employee Shivon Zilis.