“You just wanna see the Anne Hathaway movie about a tradwife influencer being dropped into the 19th century because it gives you a chance to mock and sneer at tradwife influencers.”
Well… yeah. That’s exactly why I want to see it. I’m sorry, do you think I’m hiding that motivation?
Let me break it down real simple:
A woman who enthusiastically chooses to be a stay-at-home wife and mother is fine with me. None of my business, actually. My opinion on it doesn’t matter, nor would I offer it. That’s her choice. If she’s happy, who gives a shit?
A woman who performs as a stay-at-home wife and mother in order to build an online brand that pushes gender essentialist politics—and shames other women—deserves to be mocked for her hypocrisy and weirdo misogyny.
Yeah, I’m gonna have a lot of fun watching this movie. You’re absolutely right about that.
After a certain age, your parents slowly become your children. They ask simple questions, repeat stories, and depend on your patience the way you once depended on theirs. Very few understand this role reversal.What looks like innocence or inconvenience is really time coming full circle. Don't correct them harshly. Don't rush them. Care for them the way they once protected you. This is not a burden. It is repayment.
Dear men:
My husband walked the outlets with me for 3 hours today. Didn't complain once or RUSH ME. Held my bags while I tired on things & made sure my drink wasn't empty. I shopped!!
I got home & took a nap. While I napped, he played his video game for HOURS uninterrupted.
Now we are getting ready to go to his favorite brewery so I can buy him beer for his beer fridge.
We both got what we wanted & most importantly we got to spend time together. A win is a win.
My daughter stopped coming out of her room six months after her best friend died in a car accident. She was fourteen and the grief swallowed her whole, turned her into this ghost who only existed behind a closed door I wasn't allowed to knock on. Her therapist said to give her space, her father said to give her time, but I was watching my child disappear and nobody could tell me how to pull her back. I'd stand outside her door at night listening to her cry and feeling like the most useless mother who ever lived.
She mentioned once, months ago before everything went dark, that her friend always said if she could paint her room any color it would be hot pink because her parents would never let her. Such a small stupid thing to remember but it was the only piece of her I had left that still felt alive. I bought the paint on a Tuesday, the kind of bright aggressive pink that makes your eyes hurt, and I didn't ask permission. Just walked into her room while she was at a therapy appointment and started painting her door. When she came home she stood in the hallway staring at it and I thought I'd made a terrible mistake, crossed some line I couldn't uncross.
She touched the door and started crying, said "this was her favorite color." I told her I knew, that I remembered everything she'd ever told me even when she thought I wasn't listening. We spent the next three days painting her whole room together, barely talking but working side by side. Found custom drawer pulls and hooks in a shop in matching pink and installed them while she told me stories about her friend I'd never heard. Started a small shop myself actually, selling painted doorstops and coat hooks in wild colors, every purchase going into a fund for teen grief counseling. My daughter helped me photograph them last week and I heard her laugh for the first time in eight months. This door didn't fix everything. But it opened something between us that had been locked shut. Her friend would've loved how bright it is. My daughter says the same thing every time she comes home now. That's enough.
By Jasmine lamb
A message from a Kindergarten teacher:
After forty years in the classroom, my career ended with one small sentence from a six-year-old:
“My dad says people like you don’t matter anymore.”
No sneer. No malice. Just quiet honesty — the kind that cuts deeper because it’s innocent. He blinked, then added, “You don’t even have a TikTok.”
My name is Mrs. Clara Holt, and for four decades, I taught kindergarten in a small Denver suburb. Today, I stacked the last box on my desk and locked the door behind me.
When I started teaching in the early 1980s, it felt like a promise — a shared belief that what we did mattered. We weren’t rich, but we were valued. Parents brought warm cookies to parent nights. Kids gave you handmade cards with hearts that didn’t quite line up. Watching a child sound out their first sentence felt like magic.
But that world slowly slipped away. The job I once knew has been replaced by exhaustion, red tape, and a kind of loneliness I can’t quite describe.
My evenings used to be filled with construction paper, glitter, and glue sticks. Now they’re spent filling out digital reports to protect myself from angry emails or lawsuits. I’ve been yelled at by parents in front of twenty-five children — one filming me with his phone while I tried to calm another child mid-meltdown.
And the kids… they’ve changed too. Not by choice.
They arrive tired, anxious, overstimulated. Their tiny fingers know how to swipe a screen before they can hold a crayon. Some can’t make eye contact or wait in line. We’re expected to fix all of it — to patch the gaps, heal the trauma, teach the curriculum, and document every move — in six hours a day, with resources that barely fill a drawer.
The little reading corner I once built, full of soft beanbags and paper stars, was replaced by data charts and “learning metrics.” A young principal once told me, “Clara, maybe you’re too nurturing. The district wants measurable results.”
As if kindness were a weakness.
Still, I stayed. Because of the small, holy moments that no spreadsheet could measure —
a whisper of, “You remind me of my grandma.”
a shaky note that read, “I feel safe here.”
a quiet boy finally meeting my eyes and saying, “I read the whole page.”
Those tiny sparks were my reason to keep showing up.
But this last year broke something in me.
The aggression grew sharper. The laughter in the staff room turned to silence. The light went out of so many eyes. I watched brilliant teachers — my friends — vanish under the weight of burnout, their joy replaced by survival.
I felt myself fading too, like chalk on a board that’s been wiped one too many times.
So today, I began my goodbye. I pulled faded art off the walls and tucked thirty years of handmade cards into a single box. In the back of a drawer, I found a letter from a student from 1998:
“Thank you for loving me when I was hard to love.”
I sat on the floor and cried.
No party. No applause. Just a handshake from a young principal who called me “Ma’am” while checking his notifications.
I left my rocking chair behind, and my sticker box too. What I carried with me were the memories — the faces of hundreds of children who once trusted me enough to reach out their hands and learn. That can’t be uploaded. It can’t be measured. It can’t be replaced.
I miss when teachers were partners, not targets. When parents and educators worked side by side, not in opposition. When schools cared more about wonder than numbers.
So if you know a teacher — any teacher — thank them. Not with a mug or a gift card, but with your words. With your respect. With your understanding that behind every test score is a heart that cared enough to try.
Because in a world that often overlooks them, teachers are the ones who never forget our children.
"My parents have been married for 75 years but few have noticed. Most of their friends have died. I contacted 6 local news stations and the Union Tribune newspaper giving details so they could do a story on their lives. Not one response from anyone. I think living into your 90's and staying married 75 years is quite an accomplishment. If you agree, please like and share my post. I want to show them people do care."
Credit Eileen Atkinson
And, baby, that’s show business for you. New album The Life of a Showgirl. Out October 3 ❤️🔥
https://t.co/rIaG2Ezo7Z
Album Producers: Max Martin, Shellback and Taylor Swift
📸: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott