The viral video of a 3-year-old parodying Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video has triggered some hand-wringing around the internet and, this morning, over at CBS. There, the mother of Keira Ladrow, who wears handcuff necklaces and clacks across a bar in heels in the video, defends the racy YouTube upload and says it has not at all harmed  her daughter.

In fact, Keira had fun performing as Baby Gaga. It was practically good for her!

“She’s three. She is very energetic, she’s very playful, and she’s outgoing,” Heidi [Ladrow, Kiera's mother,] said. “And Jake, the director here, he has known her since she was 6 months old, so she was very comfortable with him. And being in the industry, he decided let’s do a video, a spoof of Lady Gaga. So it was perfect because she’s so animated. And she’s a good little dancer, so it just seemed like a good fit.”

Both the mother and her friend, Jake Wilson, who made the “Baby Gaga” video (now only viewable upon request), defended its outrageous-ness, saying that was just in keeping with the spirit of the Lady herself. But that’s beside the point — or perhaps exactly the point — for all the critics, who say parents like Ladrow are exploiting their kids and causing them untold damage. CBS brought on a psychotherapist Heidi Banks to make exactly that point.

Banks used Britney Spears imitators as her example of the long-term affects of children performing parodies. She assures us that after the many, many “Oops I did it again,” spoofs, there have been regrets. So many regrets! And yet? She didn’t really give us an example and I don’t recall anyone coming forward with their own “Oops” tales of woe. In fact, I have a hard time believing Keira will suffer any ill effects of her video, as tacky and not all that HI-larious as it strikes me.

Which isn’t to say that I think Ladrow isn’t being totally self-interested and trying to make her own name by using her daughter, as Banks wants to say but seems reluctant to do so. Sure, a glut of these videos (like the 7-year-old’s dancing to Beyonce – in an even more Beyonce way!) is going to push some parents to some awful extremes. But that’s an old song — it’s just now being performed on a modern technological platform. Ignore and move on … ignore and move on.

What do you think? Time for a crackdown? Or time to set up the studio for your girl’s take on the new Lady Gaga Alejandro music video?

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Photo: CBSNews.com via YouTube

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