Memes are for everyone!

There's been a lot of discourse lately about where in public children do and don't belong. The “children don't belong on planes” take has been popular for many, many years - and we just witnessed the insanity that controversial (yet semi-universal) stance can lead to. Basically, owning that opinion too passionately can land you in jail. But the contempt for kids and/or babies on planes isn't where these feelings stop. A restaurant in New Jersey

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…

Everyone makes mistakes. Most of my past relationships fall into that category. While some mistakes can be funny, those errors in judgment resulted in zero laughs. We've said before that it's a bit unfair that when kids are stupid , it's cute and chuckleworthy - but when we are, it's just embarrassing. Turns out this goes for when they screw up names, too. For all the bungled introductions I've experienced (people always assume my name is actually Rihanna), none of the goofs have stuck. But kid…

Twenty years ago, parenting books used to be where it was at. Parents who had a million questions about how they should raise their kids didn't go around posting about it on their MySpace pages. They went to Borders, Books A Million, and other now-defunct stores and bought a bunch of books about it! While not all parenting books are written by experts, they're at least a bit more inherently trustworthy than strangers on the internet . When I was a kid, all of the adults in my life told me to be…

For a childless person, I sure spend a lot more time in the enclaves of the parenting side of social media than I probably should. Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook: all of these places have proved to me that parenting is no walk in the park and that it truly takes over a person's life. I don't not want to be a mom because I don't like kids or anything: I don't want to be a mom right now because I don't want to start unknowingly and constantly post cringe parenting content for all of the world to s…

Please don't tell mom

It's true that some people hate kids. I once worked with someone who was so staunchly anti-child it kind of disturbed me. Sure, it can be argued that it's selfish to bring life into this messed up world. But if you look at it another way, it's absolutely optimistic. There's a chance, even if it's a small one, that if you raise your kid right, they could make that same messed up world a better place. Unfortunately, the internet seems to be making that prospect slightly more unrealistic. Nonethel…

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…

In what world is it okay to come into someone's home (who you barely know) and start following their kids around and telling them what they can and cannot do? u/YouDontKnowMyKid explains in a recent r/amitheasshole post that this is exactly a guest did in her home. A friend of OP's sister, who she'd only met a few times, decided it was totally normal to follow OP's son around and scold him for trying to use his own kitchen. When confronted, the woman defended herself by explaining that she's a…

Flying with kids is so nerve-wracking. The most stressful part is gauging whether your kids will cry or have tantrums inside an enclosed metal tube for three hours. The second biggest challenge is keeping them occupied, which is much easier nowadays with tablets and iPads. A tertiary concern might be that your kids could make a mess on the plane. Luckily, if they don't throw up or have an accident, most messes are easy to pick up! At least, so we think. Semi-famous people are obsessed with twee…

Based on experience

Parents embarrass their kids all the time. It's a natural part of the parent-child relationship , and it's often completely unavoidable. Once a child becomes a tween, they can't stand to be seen with their parents in public. Tweens want their parents to drop them off at the mall far out of the view of any other tweens because having a mom is apparently extremely embarrassing. Tweens and teens don't want their parents to take pictures of them, be seen in public with them, or generally be around…

Like many other towns across the country, my hometown had an infamous mommy Facebook group . The group was a running joke at my high school because the mothers involved just didn't know how to behave themselves. They would constantly bicker with each other over everything and nothing at the same time. Popular topics of conversation were politics, religion, how evil doctors were, and their children's behavioral problems. The number of women who would divulge their children's medical history to a…

Parents deserve to have meme-ingful fun on the weekends too, ya know.

A big part of growing up is getting rejected from things. Whether it's a sports team or the top band, teenagers will inevitably be disappointed by rejection throughout their adolescence. My most devastating high-school rejection was from the elite group at my community theatre. I know, I'm really cool. I was in the Junior Varsity of musical theatre for three years before I finally got into the top group. The first two years in this group of self-proclaimed "rejects" were expected, but when I di…