I am unemployed hard. I applied to be an union electrician, I tried to learn stenography, I almost took the LSAT. I built my website, and decided to sell my TYT skills (to moderate success). I applied to over 150 jobs. I went on interviews and got ghosted.

I took my son swimming. We went to the park and playground. We went to petting zoos. We went to the library every Thursday, and got a Curious George book. We made pizza doughs and zucchini muffins. We climbed, and giggled, and bit each other (this did not stop him biting so don’t tell me to try it). This was lovely.

I also had a really terrible mental time.

I’ll admit: I used to love the idea of being a stay-at-home mom. My husband came from a family where that was the norm. That was never my family and experience; back to my great-grandmother Margaret, every woman in my family had a job.

I thought it would feel freeing to be able to focus on just my child, and not worry about deadlines or KPIs or meetings or anything. Freeing is the opposite of how it felt. In spite of leaving my house every day I could within reason, I felt trapped inside my own decisions.

Anything I try to build freelance, or jobs I’m applying to, I feel like I’m ignoring my son. Most of what I do is on a computer or on my phone, and I write extensively about how that’s bad for your child. Because I know that, I feel guilt and shame anytime I try to build my YouTube course, or my website. I go to the basement so he can’t see me, but he cries when I’m out of eyesight because he’s so used to being home with me here.

Any day I devote entirely to my son, I feel like I’m losing myself. Any day I’m spending to myself, getting my nails done or starting my business, I feel like I’m wasting money that I’m not bringing in.

Every job I applied and got ghosted by, I felt like every skilled and degree I earned in the last 12 years of working was worthless. I didn’t even get a call back to wait tables at Bob Evans, and my Bob Evans is always understaffed!

Combine that with the algorithm telling me I can fit in healthy meal prepping, a 90+ minute exercise routine, social interactions, and their easy overnight make money from home routines… I’m actually losing my fucking mind here.

I had an interview right after I got laid off. Probably for my dream job: Social Media Director for Brave New Films. An industry I was familiar with, a job I’m passionate about, films that I loved and a message I was excited about. But, in the interview process, I discover the hours are from long and late, and then there was a part of the interview I was expected to complete over the weekend. (Totally fine: I’ve worked in media before and I get it. Stuff happens over the weekend.)

But the way my childcare worked, I had my son all weekend. Any weekend work I had to do for my channel at TYT, I could work ahead to get done. If I was online from 12pm-10pm, I would miss dinner, bath time, and bedtime with my son.

I had to say it wasn’t going to work, and I wanted that job. I wanted to be a director and have that title with a cool film company. I just knew it wouldn’t work. I had my first breakdown the night I sent that email. I’m even tearing up thinking about it now.

I don’t know any man who’s turned down a job because they know it would make them unavailable for their family. I still think about that job and how somedays I wish I had taken it. Would I have been happier? Would I have felt even more miserable?

And am I actually miserable? I’m not - I love my son, I love my home, I love my supportive family. But there are days where I want to go into the woods and scream. There’s days I want to get in my car, and go to a job where I’d see adult people, and move my body in a way that is productive, and be Maggie, not Mama.

I feel jealous of my husband leaving work, and having his commute to listen to whatever he wants and not Elmo radio, and then going to work and being valued outside of… basically what I did before I got laid off too. And is it even being valued? Would anyone notice if I didn’t do it anymore besides me?

Sorry, I hate to ramble and I hate to dump like that. But I do have a bigger point.

Most women feel like this. In fact, I even felt like this when I was working. Was I actually valued? Do the little tasks that fill my day give me headaches, do they matter?

Of course, they matter. They just don’t matter to the patriarchy, and it’s set up that way. It’s also set up in a way to prevent you from asking for help.

If we question if they matter, it’s a framing issue: are you not happy with your kids? Do you not love your kids? If you weren’t ready for this, why did you even have kids in the first place?

But what about what we were told growing up and while we were working? We would find value, and self, and joy in work? We need to contribute to society and not expect a hand out. We can’t get something for nothing.

But nothing, and they mean nothing, will make you feel more fulfilled than children. And that messaging is not untrue; my son is the best part of my day. He’s incredible, he’s funny, he’s worried when I sneeze, he loves Curious George books and A is for Activist, he’s charming, and I could go on for the entire day.

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But only one gender is expected to do… all this. The forty-hour work week was designed with the idea that someone was at home doing the unpaid labor of the home, the children, the meals, the cleaning, and the mundane and unimportant to the patriarchy.

You think Donald Trump knows what his kids don’t like to eat? You think Elon Musk knows when the last time his bedding was washed? No, because they’re men and we’re told: if you make enough money someone else will take care of it for you. If it’s really that important and that terrible, make enough money to get a house cleaner or a nanny, Maggie.

But if you’re me, your first thought is: what a waste of money. I could do that and I could do it better. I have a close friend who’s a nanny. One of her families essentially went to work, to make enough money to pay for her service. But… the mom got to go to work and have that identity outside of being a mom. Which… I guess is what I want? Maybe? Do I actually even know?

While I don’t know if I believe the system was set up to make us feel immobile, decision fatigued, and like we don’t actually know what we want, I believe it was built to make us feel like we don’t need help and we shouldn’t ask for it. (I say this because I believe men don’t think further than the latter two points, and women created the other ones to give names to what we’re feeling.)

Alright, Maggie, what are you actually saying: should we overthrow the government (maybe), should we remove men from all seats of power (also maybe), should we kill them all (let’s stop there but maybe kill a couple really egregious ones to send a message?)

What I’m saying is: it’s connected. The system of modern capitalism is set up to make you feel this way, and most importantly, make you feel like there’s no good answer. We need systematic change. We need maternity leave, and government subsidized childcare, and if you’re a stay at home mom, we need regular support.

Join me for my screaming in the woods time in about… 15 minutes.

If you’ve read this much, thank you. I hope you’ll subscribe, leave a comment, read more, and write something yourself.

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My name is Maggie, and I’m a former TYT producer/manager, former educator, current unemployed stay-at-home-mom blogger. The meatball pic is the pic I want you to see (put together, the weight I was before I had a baby), but this is what I looked most of the time.

Some people suggest thinking about your introduction as your manifesto, but I want to tell you what led me here.

I worked for 4 years for the Young Turks, and I loved it there. I loved who I worked with and I loved what I did. One of TYT’s core beliefs that we believe a better world is possible. I believe that. Now, do I wish it ended differently? Yeah, I wish they hadn’t laid me off. Especially in summer when I couldn’t even do my back up career because school was out.

But I chose to believe it’s for the best. I’ve gotten to spend a lot of wonderful time with my son this summer, and think about what I really wanted to do. I applied for over 150 jobs, and got offered an interview at my high school.

For context, I went to a performing arts high school where my focus was literary arts, or creative writing. I wanted to be the female Haruki Murakami (I’d still like to do that but I likely won’t write the same kinds of stories). I loved my high school, and I did very well there. I’ve always been a good student, and even won best fiction my senior year. But that was high school, and it’s been more years than I’m comfortable admitting.

At the interview, I was asked what I was writing. My first instinct was to say, “I just told you I have a kid… when tf am I going to write?!” Of course, I’ve had ideas, notes on my phone, stories I started, but it disappeared from my life completely.

They never got back to me, but I started this substack.

As for a manifesto, I believe that the world can be a better place. I don’t think most people do things that are cruel or bad intentionally. I think most of us are trying to get by, and struggling to be happy. I believe people should know about politics, and I generally believe most people want the same thing.

My former CEO, Cenk Uygur, says in his book Justice is Coming that most people want the same thing politically. Even if his company laid me off, I still agree with most of what he says in the book. What I want everyone to know is more people want progressive political policies, and the main reason we can’t have these things is because our political system has been bought out by companies.

Here’s where Cenk will disagree with me: I firmly believe the issue is the capitalist system. Cenk’s a capitalist, I’m a socialist. Some things should not make money: like schools, or hospitals, or insurance companies, or the government. The idea that you can make money off insurance… where people pay for coverage, that you can deny in order to make money? Yeah, I don’t believe in that.

Cenk saw a lot of progress be made in his life, and - I imagine like most of the people his age - he believes it’s because people had a financial incentive. Nothing motivates you like not starving. But I imagine a different world: where we have all our basic needs met because we’re the richest country in the world. No one is homeless, hungry, worried about the lights or heat getting shut off, where everyone has access to health care (including vision and dental). Imagine what we can create when no one is fighting to survive and we are only fighting to strive?

But I can already hear the comments about what will motivate us and this isn’t how the world works and how stupid I am. Enjoy those thoughts: it won’t change my intelligence or opinion.

This is me graduating with my masters. I’m sure the people who are commenting those things about how I’m stupid also think I’m stupid for getting a masters degree that I don’t use.

The second part of why I started this is I’m a mom. And being a stay at home mom this summer has completely flooded my mind and feed with mom content. And it made me feel like shit.

Here’s my 90 minute workout routine that I do before my kids wake up. Bounce back girl!

Here’s how I run my own small business and work 40-hours a week and all my kids’ meals are homemade!

Here’s how I got my 11 month old to say 60 words!

Here’s my cleaning routine to keep my house looking like no children live here!

Here’s how I got 700 bags of breastmilk frozen and I only pumped for 12 minutes every day!

Here’s how we got our 15 month old to be a sculpturing prodigy using Waldorf-Reggio curriculum and we are outside the entire day. We actually don’t have a house, and we live outside and we don’t have phones except to film this content.

Why are you feeding your kids store bought cereal when you can easily make it and it only takes 5 hours! It’s not like you’re doing anything else.

Is your kid not doing this? Are you falling behind? Are you a bad mom? Probably!

Now, being familiar with media, I know why this work. It sells you the solution to a problem. You want your pre-baby body back, you want to make money for your family, set your kid up for success, have a clean home, and be everything, for everyone, all the time.

This system is set up for us to fail and need to buy a solution or feel like we’re always behind so it can make businesses money. Again, some things shouldn’t generate revenue. We can’t prioritize wealth and productivity over family. But we have to make both work because… we have. America has.

These two are connected. America hates women. Sorry if that’s triggering, but if they didn’t, then we would have maternity leave, affordable childcare, and doctors would believe your pain. In order to society to succeed, someone has to do the unglamorous work: laundry, dishes, the diapers, cleaning up all the animal throw up and for the majority of America, it’s been women who do this. We’re also expected to be glamorous and pleasant when we do it. The women who do all this and have a job were the exception.

But you also have to work, 40-hours a week. Overtime too because you’re a good employee. Don’t be lazy or expect a handout!

And if you can’t afford to be a stay at home mom, it’s actually a you failure. You should have budgeted better, don’t buy so much avocado toast! Why don’t you drive an old car that always needs fixed? Or live in a dilapidated house that you fix while also raising the kids and working 40 hours?

The solutions are out there and if you can’t do it, it’s a personal failing, rather than a government failing. It’s set up for women to fail, and to sell you a solution because… everything has to generate revenue. That’s my manifesto. It’s connected!

That’s what I want to do here: talk about progressive policies that would make our lives better, talk about the problems on the internet that exploit our children and our emotions, talk about whatever comes into my head because I assure you, it can come back to politics.

I believe every woman is trying to her best out here, and we should support, uplift, protect, and hype up each other. This is me sending you a long ass voice note.

Now, since this in an intro post, here’s my about me:

Born in 1991, divorced parents, split time between my grandma, and parents. As a kid, I loved reading books, writing stories, and anime.

I love sweet foods, cats, the color pink, and coffee.

If there were a movie made about my life, I’d want Miss Piggy to play me and the opening song would be 21st Century Girl by BTS.

I’m particularly good at color coordinating things and making lists.

And most importantly, I’m really glad that you’re here and reading. Tell me about yourself in the comments.

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This is a solution devised by the OG, my grandma, Miss Vella Ruth. And before you get it into your head that she was a typical 50’s housewife, think again. Not my girl!

This is her work ID. She was a domestic relations hearing officer, and loved it. She never got a dime in child support, so you know she went after these deadbeat dads. And then, she came home and had four kids and it was just her and those kids.

(To be fair, she had a village. My great-grandparents were so influential in my mom’s life, she named me Margaret even though she hates the name.)

But beside that, she famously would say: I’d come home from work, start a loud of laundry, put on the tea kettle, and start dinner before I even took my coat off.

That quote inspired this. She came home from work hyped up, and did the thing she knew she needed to do before she sat down and relaxed (which she probably didn’t do until she was 70). Much like in my last post about how we have to use the time when our children want to be most like us to develop and show them good habits, we need to make the most of the time we’re fully awake, and caffeinated.

I want to share five systems I’ve set up in my house. When people say systems, I think we get it confused and think it has to be a complicated series of events. You’ll see here, it’s not. It’s about working smarter, not harder. Some of these I do in the morning, and some the night before.

In the morning, I get up and these are the tasks that need done: feed the cats, feed the bambini, empty the dishwasher, get coffee ready… whoa, I’m already spiraling. Let’s start slow.

1. Sink full of hot, soapy water.

This started when I lived in squalor (ie, my dad’s with no dishwasher). This used to be the first thing I did before becoming a mom in the kitchen. Fill up that sink with hot, soapy water.

Your cats/pets/dishes from last night (please, do not do this to yourself, queen) need that hot soapy water. We leave our a cup of milk for our geriatric cat and it turns to sour cream by the morning. This is where every AM or night before dish goes.

Perhaps you can put your dishes un-rinsed in the dishwasher but the ghost of Vella Ruth prevents me from doing this. Let the sink fill up while you do all the other stuff listed so none of your breakfast dishes get crusty. Then, throw your breakfast dishes in there, and you can either wash them right away, or put them in the dishwasher.

Remember, this developed before a dishwasher so if you don’t have one, this will save you. Before you make any meal, fill up that sink with hot soapy water. You’re gonna be in the kitchen anway.

2. Pre-breakfast snack.

But Maggie, what is your son doing while you’re running like a madwoman in the kitchen every morning? His pre-breakfast snack!

I got the idea from @shellykowatch on Tiktok. She typically gives her kids a very healthy granola bar and a cup of milk. The bambino here gets dry cereal and a cup of milk. This plus our spotify “Happy Feel Good Mix” keeps him pretty occupied.

I’ve been doing this since he first transitioned to the high chair around 8 months. He would get those teething biscuits then and it has actually made the AMs go so smoothly. He leisurely has his snack, watches the cats, listens to me sing, and I get the dreaded dishwasher emptied and then sometimes even refilled with the sink dishes.

Here, we’re moving into what I do the night before.

3. Run the dishwasher

This starts the night before. Miss Vella Ruth was also a big fan of the night before. She and my mom would have me pick out my outfits the night before school and lay them all out, with tights, accessories, and shoes too. Can you tell I was the baby for Vella, and my mom’s only?

When we have a government that actually gives a fuck about the environment, I may change my mind on this one. But they don’t, so I won’t be greenwashed into thinking I’m the problem with this take:

Run the dishwasher, every night. I do not care how full it is. I do not care if you run dishes through it twice. I do not care if you run it multiple times a day. If you have multiple children, I don’t understand how you can’t already. I use like 6 cups a day with just my one.

This is something people let themselves get hung up. They’re using water for data centers so you can use it to run your damn dishwasher.

If you don’t have a dishwasher, commit to washing all your dishes the night before. I’ll do it in the morning is the worst lie you can tell yourself, and it really pisses off future you.

4. Laundry, every day

I hate the laundry. It’s probably my number 1 opp as a mom, wife, and person who wears clothes. Because it’s more than just the clothes - it’s the towels, the bedding, the throw blankets on the couch.

Do a load every day. Just one, but do it completely. Wash, dry, fold, put away. The four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Notice they never show the woman’s face doing laundry in these stock photos… it’s not just because it'd be a weird camera angle. It’s because we hate it. I hate it. All my girlfriends hate it. My friends with two or three kids… I don’t know how they do it.

My sister-in-law has a system for this that also involves a load every day. Her’s is separated by person: her, kids, husband, towels, bedding. I wash all our clothes together - husband, son’s, mine are all going in there together. My mom is horrified by this, because her system is color coordinated, and the idea that my son’s bright clothes go in with my black wardrobe makes her sick. My dad feels similarly, but he’s less vocal about it. This is because they taught how to do laundry by women named named Margaret when the washing machine was brand new.

The point is you need to have a system or else it will overwhelm you, and you’ll put it off. Get it before it gets to that point. Here’s what I do.

When I’m fully caffeinated, I put the laundry in the washer. With the pods, and the vinegar, and if it’s my towels, I add in bleach. And I leave it.

The way our house is set up, the laundry is right by my son’s room. So I turn it on after I get him up. Then, by the time we’re done with breakfast, the load is done and into the dryer it goes. He even helps me with this and loves it, especially pressing the buttons.

I also have a drying rack in my laundry area. This saves a lot of time because I can hang up clothes before they go in the dryer and they hang dry. This preserves a lot of my nicer pieces, and makes my parents happy because again, this is how they learned to wash clothes. It also allows me to avoid putting away so many clothes when we get to last horseman of the apocalypse. Sometimes, I even leave them there and just grab the clothes from the line to put on.

Then, before noon, you have dry clothes. Fold and put them away whenever. Then, when the washer is empty, you can fill it back up and start it again tomorrow.

5. Get the coffee ready the night before

This is my last one, and possibly my favorite. Super low lift when you’re loading the dishwasher after dinner, or you’re wiping down the counters, or when you’re getting your last bedtime drink.

There’s really fancy coffee people I’ve met who say they love coffee and their nespresso and their home system for making lattes. My husband and I love coffee a different way.

This is our set up. Basic, gets the job done, coffee gets brewed 1-2 times a day. We may have a caffeine problem, but this is not that post. Also, we’re Italian, I don’t wanna hear it. This is about my solutions, not my problems!

When I’m closing the kitchen and my son is putting magnets in drawers, I get the coffee ready so all I have to do is hit brew in the morning. Well, this machine, I hit “on/off” but you get the point.

Back to my grandma; instead of her list after work, I can say, “I start the laundry, brew the coffee, feed the baby, and unload the dishwasher before I even brush my teeth.” We’ll tackle self-care later…

I want to add a caveat here because I have two very close friends who have chronic illnesses. These systems may not work as well for them, as they simply run out of spell slots as we like to say. I don’t know how many spell slots you’re working with, or if these will even work for you.

What if your washing machine is in your basement like many people’s? What if you don’t have a dishwasher? What if at the end of the day, you’re beat from your job and just can’t? This isn’t a judgement piece. This is a piece of ideas, that hopefully can give you ideas. Solutions do not have to be grandiose or earth shattering; they just have to work for you. And if these don’t, don’t use them.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I hope you’ll comment, and subscribe.

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Your kids see you like you hung the sky, at least for approximately the first 12 years of their lives. My dad was the strongest and smartest man in the universe, and my mom was the kindest and most beautiful woman in history. The great thing about this is we can really use this to make them who want them to become.

I’m not proud of admit this but, for many of our children, this is what they see.

When I say this article is for every parent, it’s for every parent, me included!

For the first 2~3 years of your kids life, the best learning tool is their parents’ face. It’s how they learn to mimic, emote, speak, and understand non-verbal cues. And we have the phone in front of us for hours a day. Now’s your cue to check your screen time and feel shame. I am too. Mine is six hours, and I was with my son all day yesterday.

I get it. My son is growing and changing everyday. I have an app called 1-second-a-day where I record a video of him every day. I want to remember every single thing he does. I don’t want to forget any of his funny baby habits, silly sounds, games we play, the songs he likes. I want to hold it all so tightly because he’s already so different than he was when he was a baby.

But, we have to keep the end goal in mind. A friend sent me a message on Instagram that said “you have to backwards plan from what you want Christmas to look like when you’re 70.” We’re playing the long-game. My precious curly haired cherub is going to be someone’s husband, someone’s father, someone’s best friend, someone’s supervisor, someone’s teacher. What do I want him to become?

So, I make a list. I love lists. Lists are incredible. Making them in a google sheet or a spreadsheet is great. I’m type-A. Can you tell?

I want him to read, first and foremost. Reading teaches so many skills. It teaches vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. Reading builds focus and concentration. Language skills facility thought, and therefore, he’ll be able to speak and express himself better. Reading builds empathy and critical thinking.

I want him to be able to repair when he messes up, and to be communicative. I want him to be a calm man, not an angry man. I want him to be helpful around the house. I want him to play chess and math games. I want him to eat well, and move his body in a way that makes sense for his life and makes him happy. I want him to be present.

You know what I’m going to say so I’ll let you brace yourself for it.

We have to model these things.

Fortunately, the reading one is kind of the easiest. I know we all have sooo many books we’ve collected and not read. My son makes this a little difficult because we’re in his mine era. He has to touch and have everything I have so I do audiobooks.

Now the repair and communication piece. I tell my husband constantly we have to model what we want him to talk to his wife like. When I’m the butt of a joke, I say “will it be funny when he tells that joke?” This gives him a great chance to repair. I’ll write more about repair later.

We’re not a yelling house, unless we’re having fun. We have big laughs here. I try to be calm and cheerful every day, and take many big breaths in and out.

He already sees his dad do housework, and I include him in our daily routines. This one I’m less worried about. It’ll be harder when he gets older but I’ve taught middle school.

Now originally, I had planned to leave the chess and math games up to my husband, but… we have to show our children that we are willing to do new things, and things we are bad at. If we show them that we do this, and we can model not being afraid or nervous while we do it, this will build confidence and perseverance. So, I’ll be very bad at Math 24, but I’ll get better.

I’ve been struggling with the eating well, and moving. You may be reading this and saying “Maggie, you’re unemployed. Every meal should be perfect, homemade, healthy, and balanced.”

GIRL SHUT TF UP my brain’s been telling me this too. Coffee and effexor is only getting me so far. While I want healthy food to be the first choice, I don’t want there to be a mortality crisis when we have a sweet treat. Food and movement should be natural and neutral, like sleeping.

Now, we’re back to my enemy, and my closest friend: the phone.

UGH, Maggie I’m reading you on my phone — Please, please, keep reading on your phone. Keep reading on everyone you know’s phone if you can.

Much the food and movement, which should be easy but are not, we need to give ourselves some grace with this. We are in a world where the phone is an evil necessity. We need the phone to pay for parking, to look at menus, to message and coordinate meetups. We also could use a little blue light brain rot sometimes. It’s bad for you, but so is a lot of stuff.

I’m using ScreenZen (Apple Store, Google Play) to help me monitor my screen time and put time limits on certain apps. I’m not sponsored (yet) but it’s really helped me. Eventually, I’d like to get the phone out of my bedroom completely, but I need it to control the Hatch machine so again, grace for myself.

I’d love to put everyone’s phone in the charging area at dinner and leave them there while we eat and have family evenings. My dream is to close my laptop, put my phone away with it at the end of the work day and be completely present with my family. Right now, it’s a marathon to bedtime: make dinner, eat dinner, clean up, bath time, story, songs, sound machine…

But, like I said, we have to backwards plan and keep the goal in mind. Think about what you want your life to look like. It’s not a daydream, it’s about what you actually want and how to get there. Try to be reasonable because wishing for a perfectly clean home, an overflowing bank account, and a kid who never talks back (or throws magnets in the toilet) is not going to be a good use of your mental power. It will make you hate your life. A presentable house, a not-over-drafted account, and a safe, entertained, and well-fed kid are all I really want at the end of a day. It’s important that your kids see you giving yourself some grace, and building towards a goal (remember, we want perseverance and grit).

Your kids want to be like you. We can use that to our advantage. I don’t need to be the Dalai Lama, but I can be calm more than I can be crazy. I don’t need to be the biggest bibliophile in the world, but I can take my son the library and be excited about a book. I don’t need to be the fittest mom (I always say - don’t trust a skinny cook) but I can provide a colorful plate regularly. I don’t need a 0-hours screentime house, but I can work towards phone-free times. My goal is to keep it under 4-hours.

And you can too. I’ll end with a quote that I said almost every day teaching: forgive yourself every night, recommit every morning.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I hope you’ll like, comment, and subscribe.

Normally, I won’t be posting on the weekends, but we need to talk.

You know I’m a big fan of privacy for my child virtually. This is a luxury we are denying our children in the age of sharenting.

But, when Facebook was in it’s infancy I was definitely posting pics of my niece and nephew (who are 16, and 13 now respectively… also these are my cousin’s kids so if you’re family reading this, you’ll know who they are).

I was so happy that I could see my niecey-poo growing up even though she was 2,000 miles away. I felt like I was there in gymnastics with her, or seeing my nephew run around the desert. I got to see my other cousin’s kids too and it was nice to feel connected in that way.

But this was between 2008-2014. Things are different now and I have learned so much in my 4 years of working with digital media. I’m here to talk to you about AI.

A name I want you to become familiar with is Steven Anderegg. His case is hopefully going to be picked up by the Supreme Court. The TLDR is Steven used generative to manipulate photos of children in the worst way you could image, and he generated thousands of these images. He even got pictures of a boy off Instagram.

Last Tuesday, he got a verdict. This is from the Washington Post:

“The First Amendment protects an individual’s right to privately possess images or videos of child sexual abuse created using artificial intelligence — if the material does not depict a real person and remains in the home, a federal appeals court judge ruled Tuesday.”

-“Federal judge warns law is being left behind by AI child sex abuse images” By Nitasha Tiku

As long as it’s not depicting a real person? How is AI being used to manipulate a real of image of a real person… not a real person? If this judge saw a picture of his child like this, I’m sure he would feel differently. The point is: legally, AI generated CSAM is treated differently than actual CSAM.

I kept my son offline originally just knowing that CSAM could be created of him by pictures I posted. I knew this working in a news media company. Fox News reported someone needs just 20 pictures of you child last year. Now, one single photo can be used to create a deepfake. It was originally only celebrities with hundreds of pictures online; I know people who have thousands of pictures of their children posted on Facebook or Instagram.

Now, not only can they create deepfake CP of your child, it’s legal. There is no law against it, and it’s going to get easier and easier. AI is fed by what it is sees, so the more pictures of your children that are out there… the easier it is to create these pictures.

I signed up my son for gymnastics in the winter because I needed to get him moving around. I was doing the paperwork online, and there’s a box I have to check in order to move on: I acknowledge and am ok with my children being posted on *Business Name’s* social media. I’m paraphrasing; I don’t remember exactly what it said, but I couldn’t opt out of it. Over the summer, we did a weekly story time at the library and there were at least 3 moms every single session taking pictures and videos. I think one of them was live-streaming? Who are you live-streaming this for, girl?! Schools do it, churches do it, kids programs do it. My child may exist places online that I don’t even know about.

Sorry, I’m spiraling but I’d like to think this is a normal reaction to knowing a guy in Wisconsin took pictures off instagram, turned them into kiddy porn, and it’s not illegal. If you’re not freaking out… why aren’t you freaking out?

“Oh, because I don’t know anyone like that.”

“Only my friends are on my facebook and instagram.”

“I have a private account.”

This comforted me once, but not anymore. Steven Anderegg could be anyone we know in real life, and yes on Facebook too. I’m private on everything and I’m still going to keep him off there because if my son gets turned into something like that, they’re going to have to make a new law because of what I will do.

Likely, there will be a Lifetime TV movie about it as well. (I want Miss Piggy to play me.)

You have no idea what your Facebook friends and Instagram mutuals get off to. And that’s fine to a point, but not this point. People are posting pictures of their kids in diapers, crying, on the toilet, mouth open… Videos on kids eating popsicles on TikTok have hundreds of likes, but thousands of saves. We cannot pretend we don’t know anymore.

We overprotect children in the real world, where they need experiences to build confidence and independence, and leave them open to stuff like this online. If I were a someone who looked at children like this, why would I try to snatch a kid up from the park? I could just go on mom’s account and see bath tub pictures! Am I being clear enough here?

Privacy is a luxury we are denying our children. Even if we lived in a perfectly safe world, I wouldn’t have wanted my mom posting about my many tantrums, or being constipated, or me shirtless online.

Please, let’s stop normalizing this. We are too comfortable online posting things our children can’t consent to, and the things we post can legally be turned into horrible, harmful content.

I’m not saying I’m not taking pictures of my child non-stop. I have 2TBs of storage that I’m likely going to need to upgrade soon. And I send them to my family. Directly, through text messages, or a shared album.

Stop posting your kids.

If you’ve read this far, thank you so much for sticking with me through this… gross piece. I never ask this but please, share this article. I want people to know that there is no legal protection in the United States for stuff like this, and leave your thoughts in the comments.

America has an individualism problem. It’s why in Singapore, they keep the streets clean, and here if a trash can ins’t convenient to us, that’s the city’s fault so they get your Starbucks cup. This had lead to political issues, polarization, and our social safety net fading away. But that’s not what this post is about.

This is about relationships.

This is my husband and my father carrying purses before they carry bags at the mall. If you’re a husband or dad reading this, let me just say:

Your wife/partner/mother of your child(ren) is not going to ask you for help, and it’s not her job.

If she does, great. You better do it (I’ll know if you don’t) because that was already hard. We’ve been fed a girl boss diet since the Rugrats and Charlotte Pickles. We were sold that we can have it all, but also that we must have it all. And do it all.

And to an extend I believe, if you want something done the way you want it done, you have to do it yourself. That’s my theory on parenting (see my post Our kids are growing up on the internet and what I need you to know about that.) However, the house and family is a joint responsibility.

This better not be the first time you’re hearing about the mental load, but if it is… it’s all the behind the scenes work to keep your house and life together. Grocery list, appointment scheduling, pick ups and drop off coordination, planning dinners etc. And it typically falls on the woman. If you had a two-parent household, it’s very likely this is how it worked out.

Lucky for me, my parents were divorced and neither ever remarried. I got to see both of them carry the mental load, and I assumed everyone knew, you gotta plan what you want for dinner in the morning before you leave work so you can put the meat in the fridge. Both my parents knew when stuff was happening at my school, my doctors appointments, likes and dislikes because they hated each other. They both had to make sure their homes were functioning and it was 100% on them because… it was their house! This isn’t the ideal way for this to happen but I’m all about seeing the silver lining.

As a man, you not helping around the house or helping your partner should be embarrassing. Your friends should roast and razz you for it. And if they aren’t, don’t worry because me and my friends are.

Don’t ask her what you need to do. Ask yourself what needs done. Take a look around and see if the dishwasher needs emptied, if the laundry needs folded, if the trash needs taken out. If you can play Magic the Gathering, or Halo, or chess and figure that out, you can figure out what needs done in your home and with your kids.

Not everything your girl says is a personal attack. If it feels like it is, you gotta step up dawg because your communication with her is in the shitter. You never want that. Because you know who is a great communicator. Me… and everyone in her group chat, and we are dunking on your ass.

Now… for the ladies, when we gotta ask for help, I know it feels like this. It’s been three days since I showered, my kid’s trying to crawl back inside me when I go to the bathroom, I’ve ran the same dishes in the dishwasher three times… why the hell doesn’t see he see me?

I just took a big breath in, and out. And then I did it again.

The best thing my boss at TYT ever told me was: never assume bad intent. We’re out of middle school now, so no one is doing anything with the intent of making your life harder. If you’re on this page, I assume you didn’t marry a loser. You married a capable man who is likely just getting by too.

We just gotta be upfront with them. I need to shower, take the kids. I need a girls night, you gotta take the kids. We need a date night, call your mom. Tell them what you want them to do; if they say no, then you actually did marry a loser. My husband laughs about how he’s never told me no and how he never will.

(He did tell me no to a miniature pig but that’s not this post.)

When you have good communication in your relationship, you will not be offended when your partner tells you what they need, and you won’t feel any way when they tell you what they need. Your partner - remember the person you each picked to do this with - is your partner. If they aren’t holding up their end, you have a weight, not a partner.

And something important to know as parents is somedays, you will be more a weight than a partner. That’s going to happen. Somedays I can only give 10% and my husband picks up the other 90%. And there are days where it’s switched. But your whole relationship should not be like that.

And now, onto the big ask for help.

You are probably going to have post-partum depression. And your husband may have it too. If you have it, it’s more likely that he will too. Don’t feel bad about that one.

When you become a mom, your brain actually physically changes. So does your body, lifestyle, relationships, sleep habits, hygiene habits, your sex life… so yes, adjusting to that can be a lot. And then they give you a whole baby to take care of too.

The issues with maternal mental health deserve their own post but I want you to know that it doesn’t have to end like Lindsay Clancy. We can help each other by building community, and then relying on that community when we need it.

What I want to tell you is that therapy saved my life. It will not always end in judgement, or shame. There is help, and hope, and resources. And while they can be better because we do live in a hyper-individualistic capitalist hellscape, you matter and people will show up for you.

And if your wife says she needs help, get her that help. Or I’m coming over and you’re gonna need a different kind of help.

If you’ve made it this far, I want to thank you for reading. I hope you’ll comment and subscribe. And if you’re a single mom, you are God’s bravest solider and I will die for you.

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Girl me too. You know my MySpace was POPPIN, even if I did not have any eyebrows. That monroe got me so much love back then; tragically now, I have a hole in my face but wow… the pic comments were fire. But, it’s different now. Not just what we looked like, but the internet as a whole.

The biggest thing for us millennial parents is we got to have the 90’s childhood before we had the 2000s adolescence. Yes, as Hannah Montana famously said, “the best of both worlds.” While our brains were still developing, we did not scroll, or click, or watch makeup tutorials or grown men screaming at their Roblox games.

We also had a rather archaic setup. Who had a computer room? Ok 2-parent household!! We had a separate space in our living room for the computer (ironically, this was the set up that both my divorced parents came to completely independent each other.) When I first got a computer, I was going into middle school and my cousins were going into high school. My mom and aunt went halfsies on a Dell desktop, so we could all print out reports or projects. We get our kids their own personal tablets and phones, but I was sharing a computer, in the middle of my living room, with three other people! It literally sounds crazy now.

And you know I am getting my son a desktop. We will have a computer room. I’ve really moved up in life… But, a computer vs a tablet or a phone is a huge difference. When I was teaching, kids weren’t able to type, and were confused about using a mouse. They all tried to touch the monitor. Using a desktop computer also means when computer time is done, you leave the computer. You can’t take it with you. There’s a sense of separation, where as a phone or tablet bleeds into our every day life. I put my son’s lullabies on my phone, so it’s there when we sleep.

Our first taste of social media was MySpace, or something similar; our kids are on our Facebooks, Instagrams, TikToks, etc before they can walk or talk. Because our kids grow up being shown, and compared, and sometimes exploited on social media (whether it’s for monetary gain or just for likes), they are living in a Panopticon. They are being watched, compared, and judged by what is seen online before they can consent to it.

THEN, they get their own social medias. WOOF. Imagine the bullying of middle school in your pocket everywhere you go. I’m sick thinking about that. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, 58% of children wee cyberbullied in 2025. That number honestly seems low.

I asked my niece (born 2010) about this, and I’m going to paraphrase her answer. She said she wishes she wasn’t on social media, but she feels like she can’t get off it. It’s become such a part of her daily life.

While correlation does not always equal causation, I fear the writing’s on the wall with this one. Our kids should not be on or have access to social media. Not yours, or their own personally but especially their own personally.

When I talk about algorithms, I think people get a picture like this in their heads. But it’s so simple: the internet will show you more of what you’ve already seen.

When I worked at TYT, my dad would tell me, “I’m seeing so much Shuster since you sent me that one video!” or “why do I see so much Jayar now?” I would ask him, “did you watch the whole video?” and when he said yes, I would explain to him that Facebook and YouTube will show you more content that you’ve already seen and watched most of. These platforms want you to stay on their website as long as possible so they can make money. (Insert to subscribe to me here and consider paying me to write please.)

Why do I see ads for furniture after I looked up a new couch? Or concert tickets? You showed the algorithm what you were interested in, and it just gave you what it thinks you want. If you’ve watched a true crime Tiktok, you’re going to more true crime. Or more gaming videos. Or more horror content. Or more sexual stuff.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Once your kid watches something, it will deliver more of that to them, whether or not you want them to see it or not. Because it generate them revenue. See my post: What I want every parent to know about YouTube.

And don’t get me wrong: I was looking up naughty stuff myself but I had take some certain risks with it considering I was on the family computer in a shared space where my mom or dad or cousin (who would undoubtedly mock whatever I was looking up) could look over my shoulder at anytime. If I was on my own personal phone, or my own tablet, that I could take into my room, and my parent didn’t look at or monitor, let’s just say I would have seen a lot more.

As you can see here, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and Tiktok are the most popular platforms, even though these have age restrictions. No one’s checking this! As long as there are people on the platforms, revenue is being generated, so they will not change unless we make them.

Furthermore, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok all have short form content on them. Short form has been gaining a lot of traction and I would argue, exploded in 2020 in the pandemic. According to Psychology today, 85% of users watch over 3 hours of short form content a day.

So, good news bad news sandwich time. Good news! It’s not just your kid who has a shorter attention span. Bad news… it’s you too. Good news! You can fix it. Bad news again… you have to fix it by example and by limiting or eliminating your kids’ screentime. Good news and it’s the last time I promise: your life will likely improve with reduced screentime. I’m currently using Screen Zen to try to get my daily screen time under 4 hours.

Let me tell you something big I learned from working in digital media for four years: it’s all about the feeling. How you feel watching a YouTube video is more important than any information given to you in it. Thumbnails with emotions (like people yelling, or looking shocked) perform better than those that don’t. And… if I show you something that’s going to piss you off, or prove that you’re right, you’re going to watch more of it.

A strategy we used was putting medicine in the peanut butter. We would use the most outrageous, engaging, infuriating content at the beginning of the video and then give you context as the video went on. Like giving your dog a pill hidden in peanut butter, you’re getting something you want and we try to give you something good with it. It’s using the emotional part to carry you through the educational part.

It’s a great strategy. Unfortunately, it’s harder to get people to watch the whole video with the context after you assault their brain with something they want to watch more of (the emotional part, rather than the educational part). The downside to this is people remember the outrageous thing Trump said more than the day to day impact it would have on you.

Ok info dump but lemme get you the proverbial peanut butter of this story: this is how misinformation spreads. Creators will get an emotional reaction out of you, and it doesn’t matter if the information is real. Especially if a lot of people are watching this content and it’s making a platform like YouTube or TikTok money. Just like YouTube won’t take down a video of Else getting pregnant by Blippi because it’s going to make them money, they’re going to keep Benny Johnson up too. And it’s making his ass rich.

And this ecosystem allowed Trump to become president. He got you all riled up about immigrants (not our broken immigration system), and trans people (not about they’re discriminated against), how expensive stuff is (not explaining how capitalism works). And by getting you pissed off, you voted for him and now, well here we are and because the vast majority of the country doesn’t understand the complexity of these issues, we’ve got the ICE gestapo, and lettuce that gives us diarrhea. But don’t worry, trans people are still getting that discrimination, but now it’s legal so… good thing we did that, right?

But that’s a separate post (actually, my first post: Social media is actually what ruined American politics.) This about the current internet our kids are on, and how it’s different than the one we fondly remember from our youth.

The long and the short of it is: the unregulated internet is not a safe place to let your child explore. You wouldn’t let them go to a playground during creepy dudes weekend, but that’s what Roblox and Minecraft is. Except it’s not just a weekend.

Make sure your kids only use certain apps that you approve of. Use guided access in the settings to make sure they can’t go other places. UNINSTALL YOUTUBE AND TIKTOK! And try to hold yourself accountable with your phone use. This is about us all growing and getting better, and if your kids see you doing it, it makes it a whole lot easier for them.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments, and consider subscrbing.

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I wish… but unfortunately, Republican policies disproportionately hurt children. Here are some recent policy decisions and overarching themes of the Republican party that prove they do not care about children.

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Education policies

Dismantling the department of education seems like a pretty egregious way to give a middle finger to families and children. No matter what your affiliation is, I assume everyone wants our kids to have a good education. They’re going to be the ones taking care of us one day, so we want them to be capable.

And I hear your MAGA comments already. Maggie, I’m a policy wonk! This just gives control back to the states and your outrage is false and unfounded.

Alright Benny Johnson, pack it up. I was a teacher for 7 years, and I taught in low-income areas in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. The control over what we taught already was in the hands of the states and the districts. That’s why I had to get a whole new license, and it took forever when I started teaching in a different state.

The Department of Education controls federal student financial aid, Pell Grants, gathering data on the effectiveness of incentives, Head Start, Title 1 Schools, and special education. This means students can lose access to financial aid; I received a Pell Grant and I needed that, and I know so many other students who did too. This means services designed to help low-income families access early education, and even basic funding for the schools to pay teachers could drastically reduce or even disappear. Kids with IEPs who are not having their needs met will have less resources to help them get those services.
^{(NEA Today How Dismantling the Department of Education Would Harm Students, Trump wants to eliminate the Department of Education. Here’s how that would impact students )}

Oh, but that just affects some kids. Not my kid!

This argument makes me sick. If you’re a parent and you say this, I think that you’re evil or you have brain damage. Also, the argument I’m making here is Republican policies disproportionately impact children, and the people most impacted by this are educators and children.

Medicare and Medicaid

Since the passing of the One Big Beautiful Bill, 1.6 million children (source) have lost access to Medicaid/CHIP coverage. This is how they pay to go see a doctor, and now it’s gone. And this is just the start; cuts will continue. This impacts:

• 99% of the children in foster care

• 77% of children living in poverty

• 32% of children with cancer

• 41% of all children in America

  ^source

Even people not on Medicare or Medicaid will feel this strain: my family’s insurance premiums nearly doubled from 2025 to 2026. And it’s not like health care ins’t expensive enough as it is.

While these cuts do not specifically target children, as you see from the data, vast populations of children across the country will lose access to preventative care and treatment.

Maternity/family leave

(Btw, he has yet to deliver on this. Remember before when he said we couldn’t because of ya know… the war.)

If you’re a mom, I do not need to tell you about post-partum, or what childbirth is like, how you have to feed your child every 2 hours for the first several weeks, and everything that comes with those chaotic first weeks of your child’s life. If you’re a father, you better have been in those trenches too.

My mom looked at my son when he was six weeks old, and said “I can’t imagine going back to work with him this young.” She then added, “I mean, I sent you to daycare at 6 weeks, but,” She had to, and I know she wished she didn’t have to.

We cannot leave this up to individual companies or states. Similar to how we need oversight to make sure kids get their IEP accommodations met, or to make sure our lettuce doesn’t give us diarrhea, when we leave it up to these entities, things fall through the cracks, or it’s just too expensive to make work.

Longer maternity leaves benefit the mother (easier recovery, and lower depression rates), the baby (lower infant mortality rates, better overall health), and promotes better bonding for them both.
^{(The case for national paid maternity leave, Do Longer Maternity Leaves Affect Maternal Health?)}

If the Republican party is so concerned about the low birth rate, why would they not want to spearhead policies that make the process of having a child better for the women and child? (It’s because they don’t.)

Immigration

This picture makes me nauseous and it should make you nauseous too. When people are deported, it rips apart families. In his first term, Trump separated thousands of children from their parents at the border. These children do not have access to lawyers, are tracked at school, and live in fear.
^{How Trump and ICE’s Latest Tactics Target Immigrant Children}

Republicans see this as a win. This is a huge bragging point for them. They’re cracking down on illegals, and if you don’t want that to happen, don’t come here or don’t mess up your paperwork. The solution clearly has to be a massive overhaul in the immigration process, or else we wouldn’t have these issues. No one should be sent to Alligator Alcatrez for a paperwork error.

Furthermore, if my argument is that Republican policies impact children, this one is glaring. These families have done something that most of us cannot imagine doing - leaving every single person and every single thing we know for a possibility that them and their kids can have a safer life. There’s people who say they’d do anything for their kids - these people did. And their kids did not have a choice in how they got here. The children are just caught up in the legal mess and are the most vulnerable.

And if you’re thinking: well, this doesn’t impact real American children, just illegal children… I can’t do anything for you. You’re actually just evil and you can stop reading right now.

Abortion

You are not gonna like this one. Abortion has always existed, and since we all know about it, it cannot stop existing. When we restrict abortion access, we only restrict the safe abortions, which is a pro-life stance in my opinion. People die from unsafe abortions.

They will not stop and nothing you or your pastor/priest/weird pro-life organization can do to to stop it. In my opinion, the most Christ-like thing to do would be to pray for the women in these circumstances rather than criminalize them, but that’s just me.

Since the overturn of Roe V Wade, 12 states now have abortion bans. Many Republicans assume this is great for children - they’re going to be born!

While not every woman is, many women seeking abortions are below the poverty line. And if you made it this far, you know from what you read earlier that Republican policies have gutted the education and healthcare those children in poverty they have access to. They want them born to live in poverty, with bad schools and no healthcare. This doesn’t seem very pro-child.

Around 4% of people seeking abortions are children. According to the same article, approximately 50% of these were the results of rape. If we are truly protecting children, we must protect these children as well.

Now I know all you pro-lifers are up in arms! It’s not the child’s fault. The child deserves to be born. God put that child there.

I will never believe that God put a child inside of another child. I will never believe that God willed rape, and a situation where a child is born into a world where they do not have healthcare.

The arguments about women using this for birth control or saying there need to be consequences are all misogynistic, and rooted in hatred and mistrust of women. I have never met a woman using abortion as her birth control, and I dare you to provide me proof that you do. You don’t.

Because an abortion is a highly medical procedure, this shouldn’t be decided by theologists and by politicians. It should be up to the doctor and the patient.

And back to the point, forcing a mother to give birth… likely going to have some bad outcomes for the child. The same party telling me that women use abortions as birth control are expecting me to believe that after having their child, this woman will completely change, and become nurturing, and good parent? Being born isn’t the end all.

If we are pro-life, we have to support children and families after those babies are born.

Environmental policies

You’re also going to hate this one so I’ll keep it short and sweet.

Trump and the republican party’s environmental policies are all about short-term gain, and not at all informed by science. We pulled out of the Paris Agreement, we are drilling in National Parks, and we are not longer trying to make cars clean or water clean. In filling his cabinet with yes men, Trump has purged scientists and experts and replaced them with Doug Burgum or with no one at all.

We can do everything right for our kids, but they have to live on earth. Everything else mentioned here, education, maternity leave, healthcare, abortion access - none of that matters if we cannot live on earth. We need to have the world we bring our children into be clean and safe, with water they can drink and air they can breathe. This is the bare minimum.

And don’t fucking say there’s other planets, or the Mars bullshit. WHY would that be your answer when we have this planet that’s literally perfect for human life? And then if this is your mindset, you’re gonna do the same thing to Mars! Republicans do not care about the Earth we leave our children, probably because Big Oil spent over $200 million on the 2024 election.

Rape culture/Epstein

And I saved the worst for last. The president is a rapist. Convicted, and his appeals are still being rejected.

I’m not even talking about Epstein, and the allegations surrounding that. Because we all know if Trump wasn’t in those files, he would have them printed and mailed to every house. I’m just referring to the case where he was found liable for sexual abuse.

Please don’t ask me how this is bad for children, do not pretend that you don’t know at this point. You’re telling children that rape is ok, and that we can forgive rapists. If you’re a big Trump fan with the banners and the shirts, the message is actually we should forgive rapists, you love them and want them to rule the free world. That’s why you elected one!

If you’ve made it all the way here, I hope some of the veil was lifted for you. Republicans use children and babies to push their agenda forward. They’re props and photo opps, but when it comes to voting, what they chose to make law in our country hurts children.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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1. I hate cry it out.

The arguments for this are so insane to me.

“Your child will just learn that you’ll come running every time they cry!” GOOD! I will! I don’t care if he’s in the next room, or if he’s in Timbuktu, I am on my way! He’s lost in the Amazon rainforest? Guess who’s coming with a machete?

“They won’t remember!” They are literally building their entire nervous system. He may not remember but his body will.

“Your child will never learn to self-soothe!” Ok, tell me about how you self-soothe? When you have a problem, do you need to message the group chat, or call your mom/husband? Do you need to have a drink, or take a hit off the vape pen, or eat a sleeve of oreos? Or are you like the Buddha or something? Unless you’ve attained enlightenment, you likely are not able to self-regulate independently; most people need to talk it out because we are social creatures. And if the majority of adults I know can’t do it, I’m not going to ask my baby to do it.

There is more evidence about how this is dangerous that’s coming out. It’s going to be hard to get data on this because (and this will surprise you), it’s considered somewhat inhumane to do a study where you let one kid cry and you go to another. In high school, I took a child development class and learned about Harry Harlow’s experiment with monkeys. I was upset thinking about how the monkeys had to feel being away from their mothers and not having any comfort. And you’re talking about doing that to your kid?! That will never be me.

2. We are too comfortable online.

We overprotect our children offline, and underprotect them online. I’m paraphrasing here from the Bible (my personal Bible, The Anxious Generation by Johnathan Haidt). I could talk forever about this but I will keep it quick.

Any readers here love True Crime? I know it monetizes off the suffering of others (this is a different problem for a different post), but I was raised on Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack so this has always been an interest of mine. Anyway, I bring this up because how often do you hear them say something like, “I always knew this guy was weird.” Or, “this guy gave me bad vibes from the start.” "Or, “I never trusted him!”

Yeah, never.

You hear “I trusted this person.” “He was a family friend.” “I’d known them my whole life!” “I would have never thought it would be them.”

Definitely like someone you’d be friends on Facebook with, or like someone you’d follow on Instagram. Or that your mom or dad or long distance uncle would totally be tight with.

You don’t know who will see that picture, and what someone’s intentions are when they look at pictures of your child. More than it being very easy to make a deepfake video, more than you not being able to control who sees it or saves it once you post it, your child can’t consent to it.

Think about that the next time you post a pic of your kid crying, or in a diaper.

3. TV > Tablet.

I will never pretend I’m a screen-free parent. My child gets more screentime in the mornings than Peter Thiel’s kids get all week. (I do not approve of anything Peter Thiel does. I’d say he’s the anti-Christ but the anti-Christ is described as charismatic.) We watch TV, specifically, PBS Kids via the PBS Kids App/Samsung channel. Sometimes, we go crazy with Hey Bear Sensory and Super Simple Songs on YouTube.

Let me tell you why. I know what’s going to be on PBS Kids. I know that after Sesame Street is over, Phoebe and Jay is going to come on. He won’t be watching the same thing over and over on a loop. He’ll know that there are breaks between shows, and they end at a certain point.

If you give your kid a tablet, and access to YouTube, they are able to scroll and switch and rewind what they watch infinitely. They’re able to jump from the best part to the best part to the best part. And you have absolutely no control over what they’re watching, and if it’s not appropriate, YouTube is not going to take it down if it’s making money. (See my post, What I want every parent to know about YouTube.)

TV allows for a form of delayed gratification. Elmo isn’t on all the time non-stop. When Elmo is done, Elmo is done. When TV is done, I can’t take the TV in the car, or to the park, or to the restaurant. We have to develop skills for those places. If something comes up on the TV that I want to explain to my son, I can mute it right there and talk to him about it. He won’t stumble upon Roblox Pregnancy or Paw Patrol dogs pooping and crying on YouTube kids. (It'’s out there. And your kids are watching it!)

The unregulated internet is not a safe place to post your kids, or to let them explore freely. Put on the TV if you need to take a shower.

4. I expect my son to read and do well in school.

After watching my parenting goals, Vidya and Pookesh, get absolutely destroyed online for making their kids read… I realized this was apparently controversial.

I’m a regular middle class lady from a lower-middle class life. Everything I got was from hard work, doing well in school, and being nice. This has lead me to believe that the two most important things I can teach my son is that: your education and your attitude will be the things that take you the further.

If we were really rich, this would be different. But we’re not, so barring an extreme disability, my expectation for my son will be academic excellence.

Let me give you an example: I was close friends with Blake Stadnik growing up. We went to elementary and middle school together, and even transferred to the same performing arts school the same year. You know him from This Is Us. He’s legally blind. We were in all the advanced classes together, and he just had bigger print books. He was never going to let that stop him, and look at him now. There’s no excuses, just opportunities for creative solutions. Gotta give credit where credit is due: his mom was also a bad bitch.

Unless there is a drastic reason, I am not going to accept Cs. Also, because I know it’s good for your brain, my son will also play an instrument, play a team sport, and read every single day. Yes, it’s going to make my life harder for a while. But it’s building a foundation for him that will make him better, and isn’t that like 40-60% of my job as a parent?

5. Parenting is political.

How you raise your kid will impact how they vote, and therefore, the future of the country.

You can raise them to be curious about other cultures, and inclusive, or you can raise them to be closed minded and prioritize their way of thinking over others.

You can raise them to be good neighbors and help their community, or you can raise them to prioritize their needs and short-term benefit over everything else.

You can teach them about inequality and the disparities between our white family and Black families or Latino/Hispanic families, or you can teach them to be colorblind and assume everyone has the same chances of success.

You can teach them to enjoy nature and the world around us, or teach them that the world is just a resource to take from.

You can teach them the actual words of Jesus Christ, or you can teach them to ostracize and belittle those in need.

Totally up to you. This nation of boomers has made the country inhospitable and unsustainable. It’s in our hands now.

6. The most important political issue to you as a parent should be gun violence.

I need you to hear me so clearly when I say this:

My son’s right to life is more important than your second amendment right. And there is not a single thing you can do to change my mind.

^{From Statistic, updated May 18, 2026}

There is no reason why my son should be at risk going to school, or going to a movie, or existing in public. Furthermore, this is almost entirely a US exclusive problem. This should make you sick. These are people’s children.

And this is because the NRA has found a way to make people value the 2nd amendment more than the lives of their kids. In 2015-2016 alone, the NRA spent $56,354,372 on politics.

Can there be a good guy with a gun? Sure, but given the overwhelming amount of times there hasn’t been one, I’d prefer to play it safe and make it hard as hell to get a gun. In case you’ve forgotten, here’s a video of a police officer (possibly the most textbook example of a good guy with a gun) in Uvalde checking his phone while children got shot. We’ve yet to see the rise of vigilante cowboy justice that would excuse the amount of gun violence we suffer from as a country.

I don’t care if this makes it hard for you to get one to go hunting. I don’t care if it makes it harder for you to get a gun to practice shooting at a target range.

And if you think your right to a gun is more important than your child’s right to not get shot in school, maybe sit with that one a second.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and it would mean everything to me if you would subscribe.

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These are currently the two women dominating the late August 2026 news cycle. Lindsay Clancy is currently on trial for the alleged murder of her three children in a state of post-partum psychosis. Natalie Harp is a political aide who’s letters to Donald Trump have gotten intense media attention over the last week.

We are failing both these women, and for the same reason.

Before we start: I don’t think Lindsay is guilty, and I am a day-1 Trump hater. Let’s get that context out of the way.

From what we have learned from the trial, Lindsay was begging for help and was failed by every single person. Most notably, her husband - who in his own words, said that Lindsay did everything for the kids. Her google searches were all related to her children, her diary entries were about her children and wanted them to be healthy and safe. She had trouble returning to work, and being away from them. And she also had intrusive thoughts about hurting them, or about them being sick.

As a mother, I ache for her. It feels like I’m being internally drawn and quartered when I need a moment away from my son, but I do not want to be away from him. I know how it feels to stay up and google symptoms, wondering if my son was okay during teething, growth spurts, sleep regressions, etc. I know how deep in your bones and muscles the exhaustion is, and how your brain is still so fast. I know how it feels to neglect your own personal needs (skipping meals, skipping showers, staying up later, waking up earlier) for your child. Every mother does it at some point, and often, we are praised for it. We should do it - it makes us a good mother. More than should, we must.

Anyone reading ever been on effexor before? It helps me tremendously - reduces the number of migraines I get, and helps with my big three (ADHD, anxiety, and depression). A miracle drug, right? All this at the cost of horrible withdraw for missing a single day. It’s different for everyone on it, but I feel like my blood is electric, and my insides are itchy. The migraines are back, and they’re bringing severe nausea too.

I remember getting my IUD out at the beginning of 2024, and asking the OBGYN multiple times if it was ok that I was on effexor. I watched her leave the room, my legs in the stirrups, so she could look it up and check if it was ok that I stayed on my current dose of effexor if I were to get pregnant. If she hadn’t checked, I wouldn’t have gotten the IUD out. I wouldn’t have even tried to get pregnant without weening myself off it. But she assured me that I was fine, and my dosage was even relatively low.

Fast forward to mid July, and I’m 10-weeks pregnant, sitting in my PCP’s office, being asked 3 separate times if my OB was sure it was ok that I was on effexor, if I was certain my OB knew. After the third time, I said “I would not have gotten pregnant without knowing this was safe.” She said, “I just want to be sure. Most OBs don’t want patients on effexor during pregnancy.”

Doubt swallowed me. I bring it up and a different OB than the one who removed my IUD told me there could be potential issues, bringing up behavior issues and withdraw symptoms.

It felt like I was in free fall.

I pressed, asked if there was any research (she couldn’t provide any), asked what I should do. She never suggested going off it though, or said I should. She left that choice up to me, but certainly made it clear what she thought. I wondered if I should just stop, deal with the withdraw for a few days and just quit then and there. I wondered how I was hurting my son. I was sick to my stomach and there was no answer for me.

Just an example. There’s limited research on any drugs and pregnancy because no one’s willing to sign up for that experiment. I was expected to go through withdraw because of complications that may or may not present. I stayed on effexor through the whole pregnancy, was induced at 37 weeks, and he is healthy.

Anyway, that’s what its like to be a pregnant woman. You’re a vessel for your child, and every symptom is a choice between your comfort or a potential side effect for your baby. Some are easy: it wasn’t hard for me to not drink, or not eat lunchmeat. It was harder to use Tylenol instead of Advil (it didn’t work) but I was just uncomfortable. The effexor choice was harder. Some women on my pregnancy Facebook group said their children went through withdraw, but if my son did, I didn’t notice. His pediatrician never brought it up either.

Then once you’re done being the vessel, that’s when the real work starts. Feedings every 2 hours, if you’re not making enough breastmilk, after feeding, you need to pump. You should be pumping 5-10 times a day. You also need to make sure you’re sleeping, eating well, taking care of yourself. Don’t neglect yourself, Mama! Oh! And don’t forget to bounce back to your old body! Some of us are doing this after a c-section (which hurts like crazy), and some are doing it after vaginal birth (also hurts like crazy). Pain is expected from pregnancy, to delivery, to recovery.

And then, in the United States, you may have to go back to work in like 2 weeks. I had 12-weeks, pelvic floor therapy, and an incredible support network. I still felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I should be doing more intellectually stimulating things for him, I should be pumping more, my house should be spotless, but all we were doing was sleeping, eating non-stop, and binging the Sopranos. My sister-in-law gave birth about 10 weeks before more. I thought about how this was her second, and how my nephew still needed her so much, and how her body had to ache like mine. She said the second was easier, but I can’t personally attest to that.

Now I have to state this for fear you’re reading this and thinking what I’m afraid you’re thinking. I love my son more than I have ever loved anything, or ever will love anything. Being his mom is the best part of my day everyday. These two contradictions are what every parent understands. At least I think every parent understands. But clearly, Patrick Clancy didn’t.

The pressure on mothers is crushing, to say the absolute least. Lindsay was buried under the weight, begging for help, and every single person failed her and her kids. If we lock up Lindsay, Patrick, her doctors, and therapists are just as guilty. I personally think Patrick should go to jail because he went on vacation less than a month after his kids died and his wife had a mental breakdown.

Ok ok ok, now… Maggie, wtf does Natalie Harp have to do with this? She’s just another deranged MAGA woman… Yeah, let’s take a look at some of those letters.

“I want things to always be right between us. I also know I’ve been distracted all week (forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple of hours at a time). I haven’t been myself, dwelling on the Past, and the pain of losing my Dad, and I started letting the remarks of people who haven’t bothered me before, get to me—not because I care what others think, but because I see myself being lowered in your eyes and good opinion. That is the fear you see, because I never want to bring you anything but joy. I’m sorry I lost my focus. You are all that matters to me. I don’t want to ever let you down. Thank you for being my Guardian and Protector in this Life—”

^{(copied from The Independent)}

Does this sound like a woman who’s doing alright? No! She’s processing losing her father, and writing this letter of adoration to a man who poops in his pants. If this was my friend, I would be begging her to go get help, whether or not she was writing this to Donald Trump, or her own husband, or whoever you think is the most desirable man on earth is. I would be so deeply alarmed if I were her friend, or parent, or relative. I’m alarmed and I don’t know her like that! She is clearly not ok.

But we aren’t doing any of that. We are sensationalizing it, and dissecting it, and finding clips of her with Trump, and making memes. While I don’t agree with her politically, I think she needs help and I want her to get that help.

Our country hates women - if you don’t agree with that statement, my substack is not the place for you. Pay gap, maternity leave, abortion - this is all because the people who are make policies either think less of women, or it’s politically advantageous for them to vote that way.

When women are in mental health crisis, we not only ignore them. We expect them to still carry on as normal. Lindsay was crying out for help in a way that makes my chest ache, and she was still expected to go back to work and take care of her kids, or as her husband even said, “do everything for them.” Natalie is clearly crying out for help too, and we are mocking her. And her political party is still expecting her to be that human copier and get her work done.

The way our country is designed relies on the unpaid labor of women. A forty-hour work week was created with the assumption that someone would be at home, doing the cooking, cleaning, and childcare. During one of my worst times post-partum, I told a close friend I felt like an appliance. She asked what I meant, and we briefly joked about being the angry vacuum from the Brave Little Toaster. I said I felt like a dishwasher - no asks how the dishwasher feels, or what the dishwasher needs, and if the dishwasher doesn’t work, the dishes don’t get washed. Even if I feel like I’m barely holding it together, there is still laundry, dishes, dinners that need made, groceries that need bought. And if I don’t do it, it won’t get done.

(Context: this was NOT true for me - when I asked for help from my husband and father, I was met with unwavering support, love, and most importantly: these tasks done. Do not praise them. I know that’s your first instinct. That’s the bare minimum.)

But, my first instinct was to never ask for help. It’s expected of me because I’m a woman and a mother. Pain, exhaustion, fatigue, all that comes with the territory - if I didn’t know that, I should have just not been a mother.

We know that we need to do better for women, for mothers, for girls, and for the dolls. The crux of this piece is when women are in crisis, we cannot expect them to continue on as normal and they need specialized help. That seems like a given, but it’s obviously not the lived experience. This is more than culture - it’s naturally political. (Everything is.)

There are clear disparities in women’s public health, and these are even more obvious in Black women. Funding isn’t given to studying women’s conditions because there are more pressing conditions that are “gender-neutral.” In spite of making up over half the population, and being the only ones who can bring life into the world, we are under diagnosed, not believed, and spend more of our lives in poorer health than men.
^{(Sources: Why we know so little about women’s health, The Gender Health Gap: Why Women’s Health Still Isn’t Treated Equally)}

As a woman, there are two options: be a bitch, or get an auto-immune disease. I will be doing the prior, so watch out and keep it cute around me.

If you’ve read this far, I want to thank you. I would love to hear your thoughts, and would be endlessly grateful if you subscribed, and commented.

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I worked with the Young Turks for four years, and I was posting multiple videos on YouTube every single day. I also am chronically online and sought out spaces where I could hear what Gen Z was saying. This was partially a result of my searches while I was teaching to keep myself relevant, and partially pure interest. The interest stems from a core belief that the youth have the best ideas for how to change the world, without being clouded by doubt that come with getting older and more practical. Gen Z has some interesting things to say about growing up watching YouTube. So this comes from a combination of what I’ve heard Gen Z say, as well as my professional experience on the platform.

I also want to say that I love YouTube - it’s a great platform, and I’ve been an active user since 2005~2006. I’ve watched so much true crime content, political commentary, funny videos, literally everything Jenna Marbles has ever posted, and it’s important to say I was watching these when I was a minor. I was fourteen and was making Inuyasha AMVs (I wish I still had those). But being a minor and being a child are somewhat different; while the brain is still developing long until our 20s, there’s clearly more growth when we’re our youngest.

Now, onto the things I want to tell every parent about YouTube.

YouTube has moved on from being a purely creative platform to a revenue generating platform. There have obviously been elements of both from the beginning, but now, like all businesses, YouTube is about making money.

And I have seen the analytics - you can make a lot of money on a popular YouTube video. In fact, making videos that made money was probably the most important part of my job. They made my role at TYT so I could look at the analytics and give hosts and producers content ideas to make better videos that would make more money. Throw in the sponsored content (Hello Fresh, Beats by Dre, BetterHelp, the phone app where you’re like a detective or a viking or something) and you’re making a lot of money.

By the way, you’re not keeping all that money - YouTube takes a portion of your earnings. Unless you’re getting directly paid by a sponsor, YouTube is taking a cut. So, picture in your mind’s eyes: every single YouTube channel out there that’s making money, and YouTube is taking a chunk of it. The money that’s being made is a number I can’t even image.

Here’s where that TYT analytics knowledge comes to play. YouTube rewarded us for keeping people on the platform longer. The longer people watched our videos and the more interesting content we produced, the better our videos did. We made sure our videos had high click-through rates (interesting content), and high average watch time (compelling content) and when we hit these metrics successfully, YouTube pushed our video out to more people. More people watching meant more money. It also meant more subscribers, more watchers, more investment from the audience, but my supervisors really liked the money part of it.

That’s the backend of things; now think about your kid on their iPad. They’re searching: Elsa, Paw Patrol, Spiderman, Mickey Mouse, Roblox, Minecraft, Five Nights at Freddie’s, Fortnite, Kpop Demon Hunters, etc.

Kids are on YouTube just tapping through every video they can find with these characters and watching most of it. If your child loves Peppa Pig, any video with Peppa Pig is getting watched. These types of videos will always get played when served to them (high click-through rate) and will typically be watched for a long time (high average watch time). A lot of kids will rewind and watch parts over and over again. This makes YouTube, and the creators a lot of money.

Well, Maggie that doesn’t bother me. I know my kids’ interests are used for monetary gain - our house is full of plastic toys that will take 10,000 years to decompose, and we have themed parties, and character bedding, and all the stuff we did in the 90’s. Yep, I had every Barbie on God’s green earth, and I chewed off all their feet. How is this different and worse?

You know those videos you catch glimpses of that make you feel weird?

@iamjmistWhat is going on fr .

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I’m here to tell you that they are watching softcore fetish content. On YouTube Kids.

Now, were certain inappropriate things put in 90’s cartoons? Jokes for adults? Yeah, 100%. As you can see from the video, this is different. Kids start out finding this stuff funny and then because of YouTube works, they will continue to be fed that content.

Furthermore, because of the way YouTube monetizes, they will continue to be fed that content because it makes YouTube money. The loop they’ve built to keep your child on that app watching this stuff generates revenue for them. It also makes the creators money to make these bizarre, overstimulating, uncomfortable videos. What I desperately want you to know as a parent is there is a huge company and many creators making lots of money off your children watching these types of videos.

And I hear you: my kids only watch YouTube Kids, and so they don’t get that kind of stuff, and if they did, YouTube would take it down! Allow me to offer what I’ve learned from my YouTube career:

When you upload a video to YouTube, it prompts you to tell you if it’s safe for ads (what makes them and you money), and there’s various types of content you can flag. Think: cuss words, sexual themes, violence, guns. And you don’t have to flag it at all. And sometimes YouTube will flag it, and you can request it get reviewed to make sure it meets ad standards. This happened to us a lot on TYT when we talked about Uvalde, or Roe v Wade, or January 6th. We would get flagged for those words in the video or description, and have to make sure that we checked the right box for the content that was in it, and that we were talking about it in a respectful way.

When you request that your video get reviewed, that’s the first time a human person will put eyes on it. Before that, it’s all AI and an algorithm. Over 20 million videos get uploaded to YouTube every day. No one is watching all of them. You can see how a lot of stuff slips by that. And remember, I, the creator, had to ask YouTube to review it myself. You can certainly flag it yourself too. You could 100% report it if you see it, but will your child? And more importantly, are you seeing it?

So those videos are going to stay up because your child’s not going to report the content. They don’t understand the content; there’s also a literacy crisis so kids aren’t even going to be able to read the instructions on how to report it. YouTube isn’t going to because it makes them money. The creator certainly isn’t either because it’s making them money too!

So, yeah - it’s gotta be us, the parents.

And I get it. I promise I do!! When my husband works nights, I put on the Hey Bear fruit and know my son will be safe while I take the quickest shower known to man. I fully trust my fellow co-parents, Miss Rachel and Danny Go. (This article is not about them or their content.) What I’m saying is we need to be aware of what our kids are watching.

What Gen Z has said about this on TikTok was fascinating. They talk about Elsagate which is a general term they used to describe using kids characters to make weird, scary, sexual, inappropriate content on YouTube. They still think about these videos and how they shouldn’t have been watching them. Go on there and look up Elsagate. Some of the videos are re-uploaded, some of them are just describing what they saw. Imagine how this content has been forced to evolve as the platform grew.

Kids are going to see stuff and be exposed to stuff like this. Kids are gonna see sex and violence. It’s a big part of growing up. I would never suggest completely sheltering your children. I’m saying we need to be involved with what they’re consuming. Big difference between handing them a tablet with stuff like that on in (and you can no longer say you didn’t know because you’re this deep in the article) and overhearing a conversation, or seeing a clip of a sex scene/death scene in a movie.

This content is meant to be addictive (I’ll write about this topic later), and we see what happens to kids who get addicted to their iPads (I will likely also write about this.) And now we know the content and dopamine they’re addicted to is soft-core porn where the Kpop Demon Hunter girls are getting pregnant or the Paw Patrol dogs are crying on the toilet. These are actual videos I have seen.

Uninstall YouTube. Unless you’re going to watch everything they watch and be ready to explain some of that stuff.

And if you’ve had them on that iPad before, there’s going to be a big blowup. I know. I worked as special education teacher. I’ve had the iPad thrown at me, tables thrown at me, been spit on, dealt with 1+ hour long breakdowns over the damn tablet. It’s gotta happen at some point, or else your kids are watching Roblox scat.

I have to stop holding your hand at this point. They’re watching fucked up stuff. Then when they get older, and start thinking about sex, they’re going to have a distorted perception of it. It’s going to impact their future relationships. Because they’re watching it on a habit forming, dopamine inducing device, it’s changing their developing brain.

Please, I’m begging, we gotta get em off YouTube. Do guided access in the settings so they can’t get on it. You will not find a bigger supporter of PBS Kids than me, and they have an app with videos, and games, and no beautiful ass cooking. It’s our responsibility as parents to monitor what they’re seeing until the age we think is appropriate. If you want something done right by you, you’ve gotta do it yourself. Do not let your kids sit on the damn tablet watching this addiction building, brain changing, money generating porn.

And maybe you read all this, and are just fine with that; the reward of your kid being quiet and occupied and safe outweighs this risk. I’m putting my hands up - that’s your child. I just wanted you to know what I know. The rest is up to you.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. This is really important to me and I hope you’ll consider subscribing, liking, and commenting.

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Here’s what I’ve loved, in no particular order:

1. Hunt, Gather, Parent

Hunt, Gather, Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff PhD

Amazon, B&N, Audible

What I loved about this book was it focused on removing power struggles with your children and involving them. While this sounds like a pipe-dream, my 18-month old unloads our dryer, closes the dishwasher, and puts away some of his toys (1/4 - 1/3 depending on his mood). He helps me cook, clean, and with his own personal care tasks, and while it takes a lot more time… he smiles so big every single time he’s done and I say “thank you for helping,” or “I have such a helpful son,” or “wow, big guy stuff over here.”

Some people don’t love that there’s a story about scaring children (ie, lying) to get them to comply. I see that, but I’m likely going to engage in some less than ideal strategies to get compliance from my child. Why not get a little creative with it? I had a co-worker once who made up a character. Her name was either Janice or Janet, but she would tell her kids when they were being naughty, “I’m going to take you to Janet’s.” She told me she parked her car once in someone’s driveway when all of them were arguing, and said, “Alright, we’re at Janice’s. Time to get out of the car.” And they cried, and cried, and begged for forgiveness. Love evil Janice/Janet and her Baba Yaga energy.

Other criticisms include her simplification of these cultures, cherry-picking behaviors, and the white mom seeking guidance from simpler people (I don’t think the people she studied are simpler. Just for full disclosure, this is me paraphrasing what I’ve read on Reddit and seen on TikTok.) I understand these are problematic, and want to state that I agree. I don’t think that’s the core value that the book is trying to get at though. What I got from the book was to not overcomplicate things with kids, and I like the end result of including him in what I do, even if I end up very sweaty by the end of it all.

2. The Anxious Generation

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Amazon, B&N, Audible

I talk about this book like it’s the Bible. I bring it up all the time. We overprotect our children in the real world, and under protect them online. We deny them real world experiences in favor of the convenience of electronic devices, and the impacts are devastating.

I’ll write more about this later, but we are an anti-tablet/phone/iPad family. I keep my son off social media, and have already talked with my husband and family about no smartphone until high school, and no social media until he’s 16. The first person to give my son an iPad, I’m taking it and beating the shit out of them.

Social media gives kids (and us) higher rates of anxiety, depression, and deprives them of real social experiences. Using YouTube Kids and the iPad changes their brains to constantly seek this instant gratification. And the billionaires are not putting tablets in their kids hands. (There’s a great NYT Article about this.) If you read one book on this list, please read this one.

3. How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen

   

How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber & Julie King

Amazon, B&N, Audible

I wish I had this book when I first started teaching too. This book helps set you up to avoid common power struggles with your kids, and approaches them by seeing your kids as humans first.

In spite of what it may seem like, your kids are never trying to actively make your life harder. I know - for some kids, it seems like it’s their calling in life to make our lives harder. Life’s just a lot for them. And this book gives a lot of very helpful insight into how to respond and acknowledge how your kid feels without giving in.

I found the section on food so particularly helpful. I know this is HUGE for so many parents. I want you to read the book, but the TLDR/how we do it here is: just give them what you eat, and then do not put any pressure on it. The hardest part is actually making something for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and yes occasionally, it’s us sharing a cold Poptart. If he refuses, he can have a pb&j and we’ve done this once so far. It’s something he’ll eat, but it’s certainly not his favorite. His favorite is rice and broccoli so I’m not terribly concerned about the occasional Poptart. This book will definitely be getting a second read as he becomes more verbal.

4. Oh Crap! Potty Training

   

   Oh Crap! Potty Training by Jamie Glowacki

   Amazon, B&N, Audible

Full disclosure: we are not potty training yet. Jamie Glowacki says the ideal time is 20-30 months. But my god, was I so scared about it. There’s so much conversation around elimination communication, and longer term diapering, and letting them tell you when they’re ready. Which is great - I was just not stressed enough as a new mom.

But this book, I devoured it. It broke it down very easily into steps, and what to do. I am not scared of potty training anymore, but we’ll see what happens when I actually get in the ring.

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Now, these aren’t the only books I’ve read so I want to give you some other options that I’m either not entirely sold on, or just didn’t love as much. The great thing about reading is you can take what you want, and it still works the same part of your brain.

1. Bringing Up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman

   What I loved was the line: C’est moi qui décide. It’s me who decides. I have told myself this in times where I give a relatively normal request (time to change your diaper) and am met with his face being slammed against the floor. Quick scoop and “c’est moi qui décide.” What I didn’t love was the pause (way too long for me), the focus on sleep training, and the weird obsession with being skinny for a country that loves food so much.

2. Strong Mothers, Strong Sons: Lessons Mothers Need to Raise Extraordinary Men by Meg Meeker, MD

   Huge realization from this book was men will open up during activities, not the way we sit and chat with our girlfriends. My husband and I took up hiking during the pandemic, and during this time, we really had great talks about medicine, the future, the many animes we watched. I said to him, “you know, you can tell me things like this when we’re just at home and not on a walk.” That’s not how a lot of men do things. There’s a whole chapter on God here which I left unread. I’m doing that my own way.

3. The Danish Way of Parenting by Jessica Joelle Alexander, Iben Sandahl

   I love the idea of waiting to start school until later, especially as a boy mom. The line: they have their whole lives to be pushed… Still think about it. But I dnf’ed this because I can’t change the whole American education system. I know there’s more to this book than just that, but I’ll get back to it at another time.

4. The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel M.D., Tina Payne Bryson

   Gotta be real gang - I did not finish this one either. When I started teaching, I started the Whole Brain Teaching book (also didn’t finish that one). However, if you’re into brain science/science-based parenting, this will really check some boxes for you. Just like the Danish Way of Parenting, I’ll come back to this one… eventually.

If you’ve made it this far, I would love to hear what books about parenting you loved, hated, or didn’t finish yourself. My goal is to comeback to this next year and see what’s changed, so subscribe to hold me accountable please.

And Trump was funny. He’s funny looking, he’s funny sounding, he says bizarre stuff, he’s weirdly charismatic. In a much better timeline, he’s taken over the Wendy Williams Show and he’s just making fun of celebrities. Remember when he called Ron DeSantis “Rhonda Sanctamonius?” Funny as hell, that could be our every day but now he’s bombing Iran and everything is expensive. Politics used to be boring and now it’s not, but at what cost?

Anyway, your racist uncle loved him because he was able to say that stuff now. (Obama stopped him. Personally, he told me.) And then he shared it with his other racist uncle friends on Facebook, and he got so many laughs and hahas, and got the same dopamine hit that we get when we post a really great photo dump on insta. His friends were tired of hearing the option of pressing 2 for Spanish, or seeing more brown people in rural America, or how their know-it-all kids were telling them how they’re wrong about transgender people and they should read Michelle Obama’s biography. Now they were ready to change and for some reason (which I’ll explain later) believed that Donald Trump would be the one to change things. A man clearly so in touch with everyday people.

You’ve heard all this before: Americans think they are temporarily out of luck billionaires, when in reality most Americans are one emergency away from a financial crisis. It’s because we chose to build America on this “get rich quick” dream. We have so many millionaires, and you can be one too. But for that opportunity, there’s a price; it’s the entire social safety net.

And this is how Trump sold our loved ones on conservatism (fascism at this point). The American wealth dream, the mistrust of current government system, and becoming a sharable caricature on Facebook. Tragically, he’s not a caricature in spite of the fact he would be a very good cliched rich guy. He is a very real, very corrupt man who gained a lot of notoriety on a platform that did not have any failsafes against false information.

Social media is all an illusion. No one is able to have their house clean, kids fed healthy homemade food, work a 40-hour work week, support a side hustle, and work out all the time (if you do, please come to my house). And similarly, there’s no one on Facebook checking to make sure the information shared there is factual. Words like allegedly, or reported, or supposedly… you will never see those on Facebook. It’s all presented as fact, and most people aren’t actively reading. They just skim headlines. The one my husband and I talk about a lot is this one:

….how would this happen? And yet, I’m sure you’ve seen this shared earnestly.

Pair that with the mistrust of the mainstream media and you have a recipe for… well whatever we’re in now. Where people don’t trust their doctors to give them vaccines, or where people won’t watch accredited news shows because they don’t tell “the truth.” Something that was once objective is now subjective.

Incredible rebranding of “lie.”

And this was just before 2020. In the last six years, we’ve developed an ecosystem so toxic, I fear it may be what leads to the true downfall of America.

It’s men with podcasts.

Figures like Donald Trump inspired many average people who you know got straight Cs in school on a good day to do things like run for congress or start a podcast. Trump proved that everyday people could become accredited figures for feeding this fire. Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Dan Bongino, Steven Crowder, Matt Walsh, Benny Johnson, Kash Patel… some of these people are literally now in Trump’s cabinet. These voices exist in an echo chamber with each other and now play into the psychosis we see in our family members. Even though, we know many of them are actually good people and don’t think immigrants need to die or go to Alligator Alcatraz if they miss something in paperwork.

These men (and sometimes women) praise and uplift toxic ideas of masculinity, military strength, and things that feel very Napoleonic. And remember, the world was arguably worse in the 1810s - there would be no Benny Johnson podcast, so I say arguably. Before this, there was certainly a group of Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh fans, but these podcasts and viral clips generated from them are reaching new levels of people. The people who this resonates with truly believe that traditional values will bring prosperity. People talk about the 50’s, as though it was grit and determination that made exclusively white people’s lives easier, and not social safety nets installed after WWII and by leaders like FDR.

Gaining political notoriety and doing so while having no regard for the factual has created a culture of misinformation. Pairing that with this hyper alpha male attitude has made that culture aggressive and wary of new information. Being wrong and accepting new truths feel diametrically opposed to these authoritarian values, and even when they do, it feels like too little to late. Remember Joe Rogan being appalled by ICE and Donald Trump who he had previously endorsed? Schadenfreude aside, this does nothing to change the reality of Trump being president and the atrocities his regime commits.

And we have a similar problem the left. I’m looking at you Hasan Piker. We’ve developed a culture of owning the other person. That is unlikely to bring about a change of mind, and going to cause them to double down within this mindset. But we keep doing it because it makes great content. No matter our party, we love to see our points proven right. I’m so painfully familiar with this after working for TYT for 4 years. It’s still not about the facts, it’s about the emotion is incites.

It’s about creating a great 30-second TikTok that will go viral. This is why our current political climate has gone from John McCain saying Obama is a good man who has different opinions than him, to our current president posting a picture of the Obamas as monkeys. It’s reality TV now because the Apprentice guy is our fucking president.

Ok ok ok, we all are aware. If you’re reading this, you likely already now this. But what should we do to make it better? Besides community organization, voting, and continuing to educate ourselves; it’s going to be to log off social media and to escape our own echo chambers. Even if we aren’t in a conservative one, we still hear about it and watch outrage content regarding it. While its convenient to get our news from the internet, we have to rethink how these platforms gave political voice to people who shouldn’t be in these positions.

There is a blue wave building, because much like this was a response to Obama, the response to Trump is coming. While I wish the push and pull didn’t make life for people of color and women more difficult, such is the way we’ve established the system. True change will require term limits, money banned from politics, and elimination of the two-party system.

However, if you’re reading this on your phone, please stay on your phone at least til here and consider subscribing.

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