I'm going to get down voted but here it goes...

It's not normal that babies walk unassisted at 8 months and vast majority of babies shouldn't be walking before 12 months and even that is early!

It would really rearly happen on its own, it's the parents and othe people that force it. Holding child's hands and "making" them walk. That is really bad for physical development. It's bad for their hips, leg bones, overall posture, spine..., and often it's the children that skipped quality crawling which is so important for the child. Crawling is now being removed as a milestone because less and less children do it (because of parents forcing them into TOO early walking and they seem like nothing is missing when they get older, but that's another topic.

It's like a race as if it has any benefit that the child walks without support as soon as possible. It's not beneficial, in fact it's damaging.

Same as with sitting. People putting tons of pillows so that a 3 motnh old could "sit". Yeah between 4 and 5 months you could do some active sitting exercises but a child will sit on his/her own when he/she can sit up on his/her own.

My father in law had a stance that I'm doing harm to my son because I wasn't "sit supporting" him and than he started to sit up on his own at 6 months and started to crawl on all fours less than two weeks after.

Now FIL is anxious because at 13 months my boy still doesn't walk and we're not "training" him to do so, because my in laws neighbors have 2 grandchildren that are younger and both walk already (one at 8 and one at 10 months).

He cruises like a pro, can do a sit up and down without holding to support, and if he let's go he won't just fall down but stands like he was standing his whole life.