A dad-of-three who left the camera rolling on his kids while he left the room ended up capturing something unexpected on video.
Luke Morman, from Gloucestershire in the U.K., first began documenting his kids’ lives on social media last year. “I first started filming when we took Mila [his eldest daughter who is 2] traveling around Southeast Asia for four months and shared it on my private Instagram,” Morman told Newsweek. “People really loved the clips and I enjoyed the storytelling side of it.”
However, his efforts have ramped up since the arrival of his twins. “I saw an opportunity to start posting about that and current life,” he said.
He regularly posts to TikTok under the handle @dadlifeluke. “What seems to resonate most now isn’t the big travel moments but the chaos, the love, and the genuine everyday interactions of our family life,” Morman said.
Family photos play an important role in boosting children’s self esteem. A 1975 study published in the journal Psychology in Schools found that placing family photos around the home helped project a message to children that they are part of a family and belong in this place.
Though videos can’t be displayed in the same way, having children watch clips of themselves in the family home could have a similar effect.
Morman recently captured one memorable interaction between Mila and one of her younger siblings. “It was my first solo parenting weekend with all three of the kids,” he said. “I’ve done a morning/afternoon before but never that long so just wanted to film the chaos.”
There was something unique about the footage of this interaction though: it was completely unplanned. “With all the distractions I forgot the camera was running,” he said. “It was only a few days later when I was going through the footage from the day I saw it!”
The footage, which Morman shared to his TikTok, was filmed while he was briefly out of the room. “I was making milk for the boys so I was tied up in the kitchen for a few minutes,” Morman said.
In her dad’s absence, Mila decided to turn carer to one of her younger brothers. The video begins with the younger sibling sitting in a bouncer watching the television.
A moment later Mila comes into view, bringing with her a play bar that she attempts to attach to the front of her brother’s bouncer. After struggling to get the toy in place, Mila gives up, turning her attention instead to a nearby rattle, which she tries to give to her brother.
When he shows little interest in the rattle she disappears again, one last time, before returning with some sleigh bells for him to play with. This time her brother is happy to accept the offer of the percussion instrument.
Mila starts to walk off, a job well done, before returning to give her brother a kiss. She leaves again, only to return almost instantly, having realized she forgot to give him a cuddle.
The resulting cuddle is a touch overzealous, with Mila climbing on top of her brother in the bouncer and bouncing up and down, but her heart is in the right place. After a few moments she stops. Morman then returns with his other son, at which point Mila demonstrates her cuddling technique for her dad, who quickly asks her to stop.
“You see me come in at the end and stop her squashing him, but when I realized she had been doing it the whole time and he was completely fine, I found it quite funny,” Morman said. “I mean definitely part of me felt guilty, she kept running in and out…I had no idea she was doing that.”
But while some of her efforts might need work, the footage of Mila turning carer for her younger sibling was heartwarming to see. Those watching on social media evidently agreed, with the clip earning over 120,000 views.
Morman said Mila often tries to be helpful with the twins. “She copies most things we do but she’s a toddler so gets it wrong sometimes,” he said. “She’s a bit heavy handed and struggles sharing all the time, but she’s getting better and she always wants to be next to them or near them.”
She may not always get it right, but if this video is anything to go by, Mila is well on her way to being a great older sister.
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