Crying 'Single Lady' Kid Redeemed On National Television (Updated)

Earlier this week, a video of a little boy wailing after his dad informed him he’s “not a single lady,” quickly went viral. His family took to CBS this morning, and the little guy even got to sing a bit.

(The toddler quietly starts jamming at about 1:30 in.)

The Atlanta family says they blog a lot, and the father, Carlos Whittaker, has decided to let his kid “sing that song to his heart’s content.” Dad saw value in sharing the mishaps of parenthood online: “I showed a mistake. I accidentally crushed my little son’s spirit when I had no intention of doing that,” he said. A lesson to us all! But there’s another upside to this, and it has nothing to do with the traditional financial gains that viral-video subjects often reap. Whittaker explains:

The great thing about the video is — it’s gone viral, but I’m reading on all the comments, “That kid doesn’t look like your son!” And I kinda smile at it. We did adopt Losiah from South Korea three years ago; we brought him into our family and he became an instant part of the family. I’d love to bring adoption to the forfront of the conversation. And so if we can have Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” help that, then by all means we’ll go ahead and do that. As an adoptive parent, you think that you’re going to change a child’s life — but he has definitely changed our life for the better.

Contrary to what Whittaker says in that now-famous video, he is not a terrible father.