- Malcolm Collins, 37, punched his toddler during an interview at a restaurant
- He left the Guardian journalist ‘shocked’ and gave a wild explanation for the blow
- Readers of the Guardian article reported him to child protection services
A pro-natalist influencer dad has offered a wild theory about why he thinks hitting children is good for them in the long run, after punching his toddler in the face in front of a journalist.
Malcolm Collins, 37, left a Guardian journalist ‘shocked’ after he punched his two-year-old son in the face as they dined at a restaurant in his hometown of Valley Forge on the outskirts of Philadelphia on Saturday.
The boy, named Torsten Savage, hit the table with his foot, causing it to wobble, and his father, the influencer, reached over and punched him in the face so hard that he was caught on the reporter’s tape recorder.
At the time, they had discussed father-of-11 Elon Musk, who shares Malcolm’s enthusiasm for pronatalism – an ideology that promotes high birth rates.
After hitting his child, he continued the conversation as if nothing had happened.
But the next day, Malcolm revealed the Guardian article detailing this interaction, prompting a wave of calls to child welfare services from concerned members of the public.
At the time, he justified the controversial parenting style to the journalist by drawing parallels with tigers and the way they deal with their misbehaving cubs.
He said he and his fellow influencer wife Simone, 36, who is pregnant with their fourth child, saw the wild cats react to unruly cubs with a quick swipe of the paw. They tried this with their own children and found it very effective, he explained.
“I was just giving you context so you don’t think I’m being offensive or anything,” Malcolm told the reporter, who said the blow was not “heavy” but loud enough to be heard in her voice recording.
Malcolm’s explanation for the physical reaction did not satisfy some readers, who expressed their concerns to child protection officials.
‘Several people have called [child-welfare services] about this,” Malcolm told the New York Post on Sunday. “There is now an active movement to take our children away.”
The Pennsylvania couple, through their charity, The Pragmatist Foundation, are one of the leading proponents of the theory that large families are necessary for the future of civilization.
Known as pronatalism, this ideology promotes having a large number of children as a means to address declining global birth rates, which believers say will lead to the collapse of the economy as retirees eventually eclipse the workforce.
The Collins couple have previously appealed to child protection services because of their unconventional parenting style.
Malcolm told the Guardian they were called “because our children were wearing used clothes, because they were sick too often.”
“This was when we had them in daycare; Of course they were sick all the time – and because they were playing outside without us being outside.
“It’s a closed, gated area that you can see from the house.”
“Virtually all high fertility families have experienced this,” he added. ‘The government says: if you raise your children in a cultural context that is different from ours, that is child abuse.’
Malcolm and Simone Collins have three children: six-month-old daughter Titan Invictus, and sons Octavian George, four, and Torsten Savage, two. They are using IVF to have their children and they 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.
In coming up with Titan Invictus – a name decided on because they feared a feminine name would be taken less seriously – they used genetic testing and embryo selection to eliminate genes linked to conditions such as obesity and depression.
It is one of the many reasons why the pro-natalist movement is controversial, as many consider it a form of eugenics.
Indeed, the Collinses have been called “hipster eugenicists” – a label they denounce.
“We don’t think humanity can be perfected, we just want to give our children the best possible shot,” Simone told The Telegraph earlier this year.
Pre-implantation genetic screening is not regulated in the US, but there are several companies that test embryos for the risks of certain conditions.
They include the Sam Altman-backed Genomic Prediction, which the Collins couple used for their children’s health scores.
For what they call “the controversial stuff,” they used data from this company and hired a team of scientists who say they can predict the likelihood that an embryo will be 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 king.”
“I mean – having the most powerful, richest person in the world advocating your cause helps a lot,” he told the Guardian just before smacking his toddler.
“Within this period, he’s our version of being king, or something like that. He’s disconnected to some degree…” Malcolm said before pausing to hit the two-year-old.
“I largely support what Elon stands for,” he continued afterward. ‘Our politics are very coordinated.’
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 eleven children with three different women. ‘If people don’t have more children, civilization will crumble. Mark my words,” Musk told a business summit in December 2021.
He described population collapse as “the greatest 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 Canadian musician Grimes and twins with his employee Shivon Zilis.