The Bucket List Family (@thebucketlistfamily) is known for their daring and adventurous lifestyle, but family patriarch Garett Gee recently landed himself in some controversial waters when he posted a video throwing his son off a cliff.
The video, which Gee posted in July of 2025, appears to show Gee’s 7-year-old son, ‘Calie,’ scared to jump from the cliff rock into the water below. In the video, after coaxing and encouraging him, Gee simply picked up his son and tossed him into the water.
At the time, the move amassed a lot of views and a lot of criticism, which Gee has since responded to in an exclusive with People.
But now, it appears the father has done it again, this time posting a video of the same son who was tossed off the cliff, completing underwater training with weights.
Gee posted a video of the young boy walking underwater in a pool with weights in hand — and while not everyone may be convinced, many commenters on his post are praising the dad’s parenting style.
The original video shows Garrett tossing his 7-year-old son off a stone cliff into the waters below.
While not everyone agreed with Gee’s decision to throw his clearly nervous son into the water, the father of three defended his decision by explaining that his son wanted to jump, but was hesitant, which posed a safety risk. Rather than risk the boy hesitating and taking a too-shallow jump, he elected to toss him at a safe distance so he would clear the rocks and go into the water below safely.
“This is NOT parental advice,” Gee wrote on the post. “This is NOT something I advise you try. Also, this is NOT something we’ve done with all of our kids. Each kid is quite different, so the way we parent, discipline, and teach HOW TO CLIFF JUMP is quite different.”
Gee added that the lesson he was trying to instill in his son that day was “learning that you can do hard things” and “have fun,” all while noting that safety was the first priority.
“Eventually a baby eagle needs to leave the nest…or be tossed out of the nest 😉 and learn HE CAN FLY!” Gee ended his post. “But warning: teaching your kids to be brave starts to backfire when they become older and begin jumping from heights that you don’t even dare!! /// BE SAFE OUT THERE! YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS! HAVE FUN!”
The move garnered the already-famous family some additional viral attention, along with criticism, but Gee has continued to defend the move.
He told People that he and his wife are “thoughtful” and “cautious” parents and that the critical comments made him sad for people who had never experienced having parents to push them out of their comfort zone.
Now, more recently, Garrett posted another controversial video of the 7-year-old boy training with underwater weights.
The video shows the boy jumping into a pool holding 10-pound weights in each hand. The challenge, his dad explained, was to walk across the entire pool underwater while holding the weights in each hand.
After the backlash he received from the cliff jumping video, Gee included a warning with this post:
“This post is NOT for people that are uncomfortable with us teaching our kids to train underwater, cliff jump, or try new things,” he wrote. “This post IS for people who understand the life lessons and strengths that come from teaching your kids to challenge themselves, and how that ultimately manifests in more important situations like making new friends at a new school, doing the right thing even when it’s scary or difficult, and really just being a good person and loving life to the fullest!”
It’s hard to say if any critical comments have been deleted by Gee’s account, but the comments that are visible are overwhelmingly positive and in praise of Gee’s parenting style, which supporters say helps foster “healthy” kids and an environment for them to grow in confidence.
“LOVE this!!!” wrote one such commenter on Instagram. “Teaching kids to be strong & have grit!! I’m here for it! We need strong boys to grow into strong men!!”
“Keep doing this. Keep teaching and raising your kids to live and love life to the fullest! You’ll never have the support of the whole world but that will never be a problem!” added another supporter.
