There is no group of people more unfairly scrutinized online than parents. Okay, maybe that's not 100% true, but I am baffled by the comments on nearly every parenting video I see on reels and TikTok. No matter what a parent does, no matter how normal their video is, some weirdos in the comments will pick apart and criticize them for no reason. I know this isn't wholly a problem of the internet. People have been giving parents unsolicited advice since man developed the ability to speak. The iss…

One of the most challenging parts of being a parent is the lack of sleep . Kids wear you down to the point of exhaustion and keep you up at night worrying about them. It's an incredibly unfair catch-22 of the human experience. My poor mother has been unable to sleep since I was born, and I wish I hadn't done that to her. I'm a sprite 23-year-old baby, so naturally, I've never had any problem with sleeping. I just know that if and when I pop a child out of my body, I'm going to stay up all night…

Parenting is such a flex these days.

Best Actress 2024 is a cinch

What's the matter with kids these days? Why can't they be like we were: perfect in every way? Every generation has gripes with “kids these days.” These days, kids are more rebellious and less hardworking than kids used to be! If you're not a member of Gen Z or Generation Alpha, this thought might have crossed your mind. If you're a millennial parent, you might be “kids these days” curious, and I beg you to resist this urge! Don't you remember when adults criticized you for liking 98 Degrees

Are these people for real?

One of the most complex parts of parenting is deciding when a kid is old enough for certain things. When I was a kid, it was a lot easier to keep kids away from inappropriate content. Elementary school children were not running around with iPads because they hadn't been invented yet. It was normal for kids not to go on the internet for anything other than Club Penguin . While it wasn't the wild west, it was still hard for parents to control what we watched once we became tweens. I watched all 1…

Stephen Sondheim said the following in his Pulitzer Prize winning musical Sunday in the Park with George. “There are only two worthwhile things to leave behind when you depart this world of ours: children and art.” Of course, this is not an objective fact. You could argue that there are many worthwhile things you leave behind when you die that go beyond those two rigid categories.

Parenting is the most amazing thing and also the most insane thing you have ever done, but that's just show biz, baby!

The golden age of parents on Twitter lying about the esoteric things their young children say has long passed us. Back in the ancient years of 2016 and 2017, parents were obsessed with tweeting things like, "My 3-year-old son came just up to me and said 'Papa, I have a childlike solution to great economic and social problems that will go viral instantly through the retweets of easily fooled rubes.'" Unfortunately for these parents, a lot of Twitter users have caught on to these unbelievably cor…

One of the most popular stereotypes about parents is that once someone has kids, something shifts in their brain that makes them feel like the most esoteric person alive. They smugly remark on how different the world looks now that they've got kids, implying that they've got something far more important in their lives than anything a childless person could be doing. Although I understand how annoying this can be for those of us on the receiving end of this smug, I kind of get it. I cannot imagi…

Valentine's Day brings many unique challenges to parents, depending on how old their kids are. If you have elementary school-aged kids, you've probably had to go to the store and buy way too many Valentine's Day cards for your kid's classmates. It's fun for the kids, but buying and assembling these cards can be a pain. If you've got some moody middle schoolers , you might be dealing with some candy-gram-related drama. Once you age out of classroom Valentine's Day parties, kids start to send eac…

Parents love to document every milestone their kid reaches. A child's first steps, first word, and first day of school are all recorded carefully by their mom and dad so they can relive that memory for years to come. However, the most memorable moments of a kid's life usually happen when the cameras aren't around. When I was a kid, I wore my parents down so much one night by asking them endless questions about the biology of conjoined twins. Obviously, they didn't have extensive knowledge of th…

Isn't it wild that so many popular ideas about parenting came from one dude? I'm talking, of course, about Dr. Spock. No, no Dr. Spock from Star Trek, but the Dr. Spock who wrote the most influential book about parenting of the 20th century. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care revolutionized child care in the 1940s and 1950s and taught parents to see their children as individuals, all with their own individual needs. Before Spock, parenting books told parents to do everything on a rigi…

I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret; I am not a parent. Despite this, my friends always tell me that they think I'd be a good mom . What does that say about me? I have no idea. My first theory is that I would be a good mom because I have incredible vibes, and I will pass those good vibes down through my bloodline. Hopefully, my good vibes won't skip a generation! Perhaps I would be one of those strict, no-nonsense parents that can't stop bragging about how their 3-year-old has never…

Tell me if you've heard this one: "I'm going to have kids early so I can enjoy my 40s and 50s." Or what about this one: "I'm going to wait until I'm 30 to have a kid so I can enjoy my twenties." These lines of reasoning are predicated on the notion that having kids is not enjoyable and is something you want to be relieved of eventually or postpone. I have little qualification to speak on this: I am not a parent, and who knows what the future of parenthood will look like for me. But I hope that…