David Beckham Slams Daily Mail Over Parenting Criticism: ‘You Have No Right to Criticize’

The celebrity news and gossip site published story Monday about the soccer star’s 4-year-old daughter Harper still using a pacifier

David Beckham took to Instagram Monday night to lash out against the Daily Mail, which published story Monday criticizing his and wife Victoria Beckham’s parenting skills.

The Daily Mail’s headline said, “Why does Harper, four, still use a dummy? Experts warn David and Victoria Beckham‘s little girl may end up with ‘speech or dental issues’ if she continues to use.”

The star soccer player wasn’t having any of it and spoke out on his Instagram account.

“Why do people feel they have the right to criticize a parent about their own children without having any facts? Everybody who has children knows that when they aren’t feeling well or have a fever you do what comforts them best and most of the time it’s a pacifier so those who criticize think twice about what you say about other people’s children because actually you have no right to criticize me as a parent,” Beckham wrote.

In the Daily Mail article, experts warned the parents of four about dangers of using a pacifier (or as they referred to it, “a dummy”) at Harper’s age.

“I can’t believe she is still using a dummy,” nurse and midwife Clare Byam-Cook told the Mail. “If she has a dummy in their mouth at this age, at four, it really can damage her teeth and it is very likely to hinder speech development.”

Byam-Cook even said that Victoria and David should be thinking about being possible role models for other parents.

“David and Victoria seem wonderful parents and I’m sure they give Harper lots of attention but, like it or not, they are role models and lots of people will see this and think that having a dummy at this age is normal when it is not,” she said. “It could be last child syndrome – because she is the youngest David and Victoria could be clinging on to her being a baby.”

Parenting expert Sue Atkins told the Daily Mail that, “it is an easy option for parents, because if you give them a dummy they shut up and are quiet. It’s the same as giving them an iPad really.”

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