Dominic Smithers
A woman has hit back after being criticized for bringing her young child to Burning Man.
Bianca Snyder has long been vocal about her love of the iconic festival, which is held in the searing heat of the Nevada desert. This is what she has to say to the haters:
Having proudly attended the event 11 times, the influencer is a veteran, so to speak, and is set to go to her 12th.
Advert
However, her commitment to the festival has not gone without incident, and she's come in for a lot of heat from people due to the fact she brings her seven year-old son, Tage, along with her.
A photo of her breastfeeding her then 22-month-old child went viral back in 2018, and caused a huge backlash.
Many people out there feel that she is exposing her son to all manner of dangers, namely sex and drugs.
One critic said: "Cool he can go to the orgy."
While another added: "Bad parenting 101."
In a video shared to her TikTok account, Snyder said it was the 'worst public shaming' she had experienced.
And in an interview with Insider about it all, she said she doesn't pay any attention to the hate anymore.
She said: "Our son goes everywhere that we go and that's just the way that we live.
"It was definitely a combination of people not liking public breastfeeding, and also, 'Why would you bring your child to a drug festival?'"
Snyder isn't naive enough to think that drugs or other illicit activities don't go on at Burning Man, but she says that's not what it's about for her family.
"You can cultivate the experience that you want to have, and you're not subject to those extremes if you don't want to be," she said.
"There's people doing yoga, there's people having important conversations that are relevant to improving the future of mankind. There's people experiencing art."
And she believes that taking Tage to places like this are only going to benefit him in the long term.
Snyder says that interacting with people from different walks of life has 'brought a lot' to her son's 'socialization, being able to talk to strangers'.
When it comes to the question of nudity, which is prevalent at Burning Man, that's not something Snyder thinks her child needs to be protected from
"That's not something that I think that a child needs to be sheltered from because we are all humans," she said. "We all have that same anatomy."
Overall, Snyder believes that experiences like Burning Man will no doubt be good for Tage.
She said: "It's about giving them experiences to build their confidence to become stronger, self-sufficient humans.
"And you can start that at any age."