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Tim Walz’s son goes viral with wholesome, emotional response to his dad's big speech

It was about so much more than politics.

DNC; Democratic nomination; Tim Walz; Tim Walz's son; Gus Walz; Gus Walz cries; Gus Walz learning disability
C-Span/YouTube Screenshot

People can't stop crying over Gus Walz's reaction to dad

There's something about seeing someone else overcome with emotions that makes people choke up. Seeing someone's pure joy, excitement or sadness is almost always a recipe for a moment of genuine human connection, whether it's watching someone graduate, the birth of a new baby or in this case, watching a proud son react to his father's speech.

Tim Walz, the Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate is seen giving a moving speech at the DNC where he and Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris are expected to accept their nomination. Walz was in attendance with his wife and children, who watched on as the vice presidential hopeful spoke about the difficulty he and his wife had conceiving children.

Walz explains to a packed venue that he and and wife had to undergo fertility treatments, "And I can remember praying each night for a phone call. The pit in your stomach when the phone would ring and the absolute agony when we heard the treatment hadn't worked."

The father of two says it took he and his wife years even though they had access to fertility treatments, sharing that when their daughter was born, they named her Hope. This revelation caused a visible reaction from his daughter who made a heart with her hands before placing one over her heart as she appeared to hold back tears.

Gus, Walz's 17-year-old son was overcome by emotions when his father says, "Hope, Gus and Gwen, you are my entire world and I love you." It was this moment that has taken the internet through an emotional journey of its own. The teen stood up with tears streaming as he clapped while shouting to anyone who could hear, "that's my dad! That's my dad!"



It's nearly impossible to look at this moment without the back of your eyes stinging from the emotions radiating from the screen. People on social media are also having a hard time controlling the tears as they watch his emotions overflow for the love and pride he clearly has in his father.

An account that goes by the name The Real Doubledeemuva uploaded the video with her commentary saying, "his son has a nonverbal learning disability and has anxiety and he was in a room full of people just to hear his daddy and as Tim was talking about his family saying how much he loved them and how they got their start due to fertility treatments. That baby stood up out of his chair and was pointing at his daddy and saying 'that's my daddy' and turned around to everybody saying 'that's my daddy.'"


@therealdoubledeemuva Tim Walz son Gus cries and says "that's my dad" as he Tim gives a phenomenal speech at the dnc #heyplayas #timwalz #kamalaharris #minnesota #dnc #Chicago #illinois ♬ Boundless Worship - Josué Novais Piano Worship


People in the comments also shared how emotional it was to see Gus react to his father's speech while several are ready to do everything in their power to protect the teen.

"Very emotional moment. The way his babies looked at their father in that light. I lost it! Love Gov. Walz," someone gushes.

"I'm a 52 year old black male from NJ, Gus had me ugly tearing nose running. The love," one commenter shares.

"When I tell you I was crying right along with Gus. America's Nephew now," another person cries.

For one commenter, the tears were a family affair, "this broke me and my husband both. We sat in the living room watching the love that child has for his dad. We were drowning in our own tears. If you didn't cry too, you don't have a heart."

The people have spoken, Gus Walz is now everyone's nephew and must be protected at all costs. It's the rule after you make nearly everyone on the internet collectively cry.

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Parenting

When a Patagonia employee breastfed her baby in a meeting her male VP's response was a masterclass in workplace values

Talk about a "family-friendly workplace."

Holly Morissette/LinkedIn

Years after it happened, Patagonia's approach to the "family-friendly workplace" is a whole new level that still deserves our attention - and praise.

The outdoor clothing and gear company has made a name for itself by putting its money where its mouth is. From creating backpacks out of 100% recycled materials to donating their $10 million tax cut to fight climate change to refusing to sell to clients who harm the environment, Patagonia leads by example.

That dedication to principle is clear in its policies for parents who work for them, as evidenced by a 2019 viral post from Holly Morisette, a recruiter at Patagonia.

Morisette wrote on LinkedIn:

"While nursing my baby during a morning meeting the other day after a recent return from maternity leave, our VP (Dean Carter) turned to me and said...'There is no way to measure the ROI on that. But I know it's huge.'

It got me thinking...with the immense gratitude that I have for on-site childcare at Patagonia comes a responsibility to share a 'call to action'. A PSA to tout the extraordinary benefits that come along with not asking employees to make the gut wrenching decision to either leave their jobs or leave their babies. TO HAVE TO LEAVE THEIR JOBS OR LEAVE THEIR BABIES. That perhaps just one person will brave the subject with their employer (big or small) in the hopes that it gets the wheels turning to think differently about how to truly support working families.

That with a bit of creativity, and a whole lot of guts, companies can create a workplace where mothers aren't hiding in broom closets pumping milk, but rather visiting their babies for large doses of love and serotonin before returning to their work and kicking ass.

It's no wonder that Patagonia has 100% retention of moms. Keeping them close to their babies keeps them engaged. And engaged mothers (and fathers!) get stuff done. Thank you, Patagonia, for leading the way. "


Holly Morissette on LinkedIn: "While nursing my baby during a morning meeting the other day after a recent return from maternity leave, our VP (Dean Carter) turned to me and said..."There is no way to measure the ROI on that. But I know it's huge." It got me thinking...with the immense gratitude that I have for on-site childcare at Patagonia comes a responsibility to share a “call to action". A PSA to tout the extraordinary benefits that come along with not asking employees to make the gut wrenching decision to either leave their jobs or leave their babies. TO HAVE TO LEAVE THEIR JOBS OR LEAVE THEIR BABIES. That perhaps just one person will brave the subject with their employer (big or small) in the hopes that it gets the wheels turning to think differently about how to truly support working families. That with a bit of creativity, and a whole lot of guts, companies can create a workplace where mothers aren't hiding in broom closets pumping milk, but rather visiting their babies for large doses of love and serotonin before returning to their work and kicking ass. It's no wonder that Patagonia has 100% retention of moms. Keeping them close to their babies keeps them engaged. And engaged mothers (and fathers!) get stuff done. Thank you, Patagonia, for leading the way. " www.linkedin.com


Just the first eight words of Morisette's post are extraordinary. "While nursing my baby during a morning meeting..."

As if that's totally normal. As if everyone understands that working moms can be much more engaged and efficient in their jobs if they can feed their baby while they go over sales figures. As if the long-held belief that life and work must be completely separate is a construct that deserves to be challenged.

And then the comment from her male colleague about the ROI (Return on Investment) of breastfeeding—witty, considering the time and place, and yet so supportive.

On-site childcare so that parents don't have to choose between leaving their jobs or leaving their babies. Letting life integrate with work so that working families don't have to constantly feel torn in two different directions. Flexibility in meetings and schedules. Allowing for the natural rhythms and needs of breastfeeders. Making childcare as easy and accessible as possible so that employees can be more effective in their jobs.

All of this seems so profoundly logical, it's a wonder that more companies have not figured this out sooner. Clearly, it works. I mean, who has ever heard of a 100% retention rate for mothers?

Patagonia's got it goin' on. Let's hope more companies take their lead.


This article originally appeared on 8.16.19

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Joy

Pizza guy whose quick thinking saved a woman's life gets the reward of a lifetime

He saw her trapped in her own home, begging for help.

via WITI Milwaukee

Joey Grundl, Milwaukee pizza guy.

Joey Grundl, who was working as a pizza delivery driver for a Domino's Pizza in Waldo, Wisconsin, was hailed as a hero for noticing a kidnapped woman's subtle cry for help. It's a timeless story that continues to resonate with people today.

Back in 2018, the delivery man was sent to a woman's house to deliver a pie when her ex-boyfriend, Dean Hoffman, opened the door. Grundl looked over his shoulder and saw a middle-aged woman with a black eye standing behind Hoffman. She appeared to be mouthing the words: "Call the police."

"I gave him his pizza and then I noticed behind him was his girlfriend," Grundl told WITI Milwaukee. "She pointed to a black eye that was quite visible. She mouthed the words, 'Call the police.'"

domestic abuse, celebrity, community, kidnapped

The Dean Hoffmann mugshot.

via WITI Milwaukee

When Grundl got back to his delivery car, he called the police. When the police arrived at the home, Hoffmann tried to block the door, but eventually let the police into the woman's home.

After seeing the battered woman, Hoffmann was arrested and she was taken to the hospital for her wounds.

Earlier in the day, Hoffman arrived at the house without her permission and tried to convince her to get back into a relationship with him. He then punched her in the face and hog tied her with a vacuum power cord.

"If you love me, you will let me go," she pleaded, but he reportedly replied, "You know I can't do that." He also threatened to shoot both of them with a .22 caliber firearm he kept in his car. The woman later told authorities that she feared for her life.

An alert pizza delivery driver helped save a woman from her abusive ex-boyfriend, police say. A 55-year-old Grafton man now faces several counts of domestic ...

A day later, Grundl was seen on TV wearing a hoodie from Taylor Swift's "Reputation Tour" and her fans quickly jumped into action, tagging Swift in photos of the hero. Grundl already had tickets to go to an upcoming Swift concert in Arlington, Wisconsin, but when Swift learned of the story, she arranged to meet Grundl backstage.

"She … she knew who I was," Grundl jokingly tweeted after the concert. "I'm thoroughly convinced Taylor gave me a cold."

"This has been one of the most exciting weeks of my life," Grundl said. "I'm legitimately getting emotional and I almost never get like this. But as the likely most memorable week of my entire life comes to an end … I guess I can really say … I'm doing better than I ever was."


This story originally appeared on 10.4.18

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Popular

'Entitled parent' discovers airline moved their toddler's seat just before flight takes off

Another passenger behaving badly story takes a huge twist.

Photo by Steven Thompson on Unsplash

I took a long Amtrak train trip from Atlanta to Baltimore with my 9-year-old daughter this summer.

As far as I could tell, there was no way to reserve specific seats in coach on our particular train ahead of time. But we arrived as early as we could and, to our delight, were treated to a near empty train. We sat together in a two-person row and had a really nice trip up to Baltimore.

On the way back? We boarded at Union Station and the train, having arrived from New York, was already packed. The conductor told me he would try his best to seat us together but couldn't guarantee it. You should have seen the terror in my daughter's eyes.

It would be a 14-hour overnight train ride. Sitting her next to some stranger that whole time? Absolutely not. No way.

They eventually found us seats across an aisle from each other, which kind of worked, but wasn't ideal. Luckily, the guy I was supposed to sit next on the other side flew into a rage that he wouldn't have a row to himself and stormed off to sit elsewhere, freeing up the row for us.

But for a few horrible minutes, I had become "that dad" desperately asking anyone in the area if they'd be willing to move so we could sit together.

I had become the dreaded entitled parent from all the viral travel stories.

Stories of "entitled parents" desperately trying to get other passengers to switch seats go viral all the time. But a recent thread on Reddit shows why we don't always get the full story.

Description from Reddit of airplane seating snafuReddit

User u/takeme2themtns recently shared a nightmare travel story in the r/Delta subreddit:

"In typical Delta fashion, they just switched up our seats and placed my toddler in a row away from us," they wrote. "Booked three seats ... in comfort plus months ago. Now, several hours before the flight we get notifications that our seats have changed. They put wife and me in exit row seats and the toddler in a window seat a row away."

With no way to fix the seating snafu digitally, the OP would have to rely on the Gate Attendant or even Flight Attendant to make a last-minute change — which would force someone else on the plane to move.

"I’m confident the GA (gate attendant) will take care of it," they wrote, "but it’s still so frustrating that we have to worry about it. I know we see posts like this all the time, but that’s because it happens all the time to people. Delta needs to fix this trashy system."

Another user in the comments wrote to share a similar story:

"I had this happen to me. The check-in person said to talk to the gate.

The gate said to talk to the flight attendant.

The flight attendant told me to ask people to trade seats.

I asked people. People said no. Other passengers started berating me for not planning ahead and saying my lack of planning isn’t their responsibility.

I defended myself by saying I reserved seats months ago and Delta moved me at the last minute. Then passengers started yelling at each other about my situation.

The FA had someone move and I got to sit with my daughter."

The user noted that the situation was chaotic and traumatizing.

These stories are far from rare.


woman carrying baby while sitting on gray seat Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

I found another story just like this from a few months ago on the r/United subreddit. The user's family booked seats together only for the system to separate them right before the flight, leaving an 8-year-old to fly seated alone. The flight crew's only solution was to ask other passengers to switch, causing the OP's family to get lots of dirty looks for the duration of the flight.

Having a young child or toddler seated away from you while traveling is just a complete No-Go, for many reasons. But as a dad, leaving a kid of nearly any age to sit alone — even if they're 8 or 10 or 14 — is not acceptable.

It's not just about convenience, it's a huge safety issue. There are plenty of horrifying news stories that support why a parent would do absolutely anything to avoid it.

When we hear these stories, they're almost always framed as the parents being unprepared, lazy, and entitled. But maybe we're missing the point.

boy sitting on plane seat while viewing window Photo by Hanson Lu on Unsplash

A story from January of this year praises a passenger who refused to switch seats with an "entitled dad" as a "hero."

People are fed up with parents asking them to switch out of airline or train seats that they paid good money for. And I don't blame them!

But we need to stop beating each other up and start holding the airlines and other travel companies accountability for putting parents and non-parents into this mess in the first place.

There needs to be a better system for families booking plane and train tickets. When you buy tickets, you have to enter in the ages of the children you're traveling with — so it stands to reason that these mix-ups flat out shouldn't happen!

Families shouldn't have to panic at the gate or on board about this! Other paying passengers shouldn't have to give up their seats!

The good news is that the Department of Transportation has recently gotten involved with a dashboard of which airlines guarantee family seating at no additional cost.

The DOT is looking to even make it illegal to for airlines to charge parents and children fees to sit together. Parents and children under 13 would be required to be seated side by side or immediately adjacent, and if not, they'd get a full refund or free rebooking — it's known as the Families Fly Together Act.

Traveling in 2024 is stressful enough, from seat changes to unruly passengers to high numbers of cancelled flights.

Seating kids and parents together seems like one small problem we should be able to solve.

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This innocent question we ask boys is putting more pressure on them than we realize

When it's always the first question asked, the implication is clear.


Studies show that having daughters makes men more sympathetic to women's issues.

And while it would be nice if men did not need a genetic investment in a female person in order to gain this perspective, lately I've had sympathy for those newly woke dads.

My two sons have caused something similar to happen to me. I've begun to glimpse the world through the eyes of a young male. And among the things I'm finding here in boyland are the same obnoxious gender norms that rankled when I was a girl.

Of course, one notices norms the most when they don't fit. If my tween sons were happily boy-ing away at boy things, neither they nor I would notice that they were hemmed in.

But oh boy, are they not doing that.

In fact, if I showed you a list of my sons' collective interests and you had to guess their gender, you'd waver a bit, but then choose girl.

Baking, reading, drawing, holidays, films, volleyball, cute mammals, video games, babies and toddlers, reading, travel, writing letters.

I imagine many of you are thinking at this point: That's awesome that your boys are interested in those things!

There's more. One loves comics and graphic novels but gravitates to stories with strong female protagonists, like Ms. Marvel and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Cool! I love it.

And sports. They are thoroughly bored by team sports. They don't play them. They won't watch them. They will up- or down-arrow through any number of sporting events on TV to get to a dance contest or to watch competitive baking.

So? Nothing wrong with that.

Those are the kinds of things all my progressive friends say.

But it's often not the message my sons themselves hear from the other adults in their lives, their classmates, and the media.

For example, the first get-to-know-you question they are inevitably asked by well-meaning grown-ups is, "So, do you play sports?" When they say, "No, not really," the adult usually continues brightly, "Oh, so what do you like to do, then?"

No one explicitly says it's bad for a boy not to play sports. But when it's always the first question asked, the implication is clear: playing sports is normal; therefore, not playing them is not.

The truth is that one of them does play a sport. He figure skates, as does my daughter. When people find out that she skates, they beam at her, as if she suddenly has possession of a few rays of Olympic glory. In the days before my son stopped telling people that he ice skates, most of them hesitated and then said, "Oh, so you are planning to play hockey?"

But it's not just what people say. It's all those pesky, unwritten rules. When he was in second grade, my younger son liked the Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew series. But he refused to check any out of the school library. He explained: "Girls can read boy books, but boys can't read girl books. Girls can wear boy colors or girl colors, but boys can only wear boy colors. Why is that, Mom?"

I didn't have an answer.

An obvious starting point — and the one that we have the most control over — is to change the way we speak to the boys in our lives.

As Andrew Reiner suggests in a spot-on essay, we should engage boys in analytical, emotion-focused conversations, just like we do with girls. In "How to Talk to Little Girls," Lisa Bloom offers alternatives to the appearance-focused comments so often directed at young girls: asking a girl what she's reading or about current events or what she would like to see changed in the world. I could copy-paste Bloom's list and slap a different title on it: "How to Ask Boys About Something Besides Sports."

And with a few more built-in nudges, we might expand the narrow world of boyhood more quickly. Boy Scouts could offer badges for developing skills in child care, teamwork, and journaling. Girl-dominated activities like art, dance, gymnastics, and figure skating could be made more welcoming to boys, with increased outreach and retention efforts. My son could write his own essay about trying to fit in to the nearly all-girl world of figure skating, including the times he has had to change clothes in a toilet stall at skating events because there were no locker rooms available for boys.

I used to think that the concept of gender — of "girl things" and "boy things" — was what was holding us back.

Now I see it differently.

The interdependent yin and yang of gender is a fundamental part of who we are, individually and collectively. We need people who like to fix cars and people who like to fix dinner. We need people who are willing and able to fight if needed and people who are exquisitely tuned into a baby's needs. But for millennia, we have forced these traits to align with biological sex, causing countless individuals to be dissatisfied and diminished. For the most part, we've recognized this with girls. But we have a long way to go when it comes to boys. As Gloria Steinem observed, "We've begun to raise daughters more like sons … but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters."

I acknowledge that young boys feeling pressured to be sports fans is not our country's biggest problem related to gender.

Transgender individuals still confront discrimination and violence. The #MeToo movement has revealed to anyone who didn't already know it that girls and women can't go about their everyday lives without bumping into male sexual aggression.

But if our culture shifts to wholeheartedly embrace the whole spectrum of unboyishness, it may play some small role in addressing these other issues, too. Male culture will be redefined, enriched, and expanded, diluting the toxic masculinity that is at the root of most of our gender-related problems.

Boys and girls alike will be able to decide if they would rather be made up of snips and snails, sugar and spice, or a customized mix. And my future grandsons, unlike my sons, won't think twice about wearing pink or reading about a girl detective at school.

This story originally appeared on Motherwell and is reprinted here with permission.


This article originally appeared on 06.20.18

Family

Son tells mom that he's 'scared of her' and she responds with a great lesson in parenting

'I know this might be a little shocking but I do sometimes actually find you a little scary.'

Photo by Sai De Silva on Unsplash
woman holding kid at the street

Parenting is a hard gig regardless of whether you planned to have children or they were a happy surprise. As many parenting books as there are out there, none of them have the perfect equation to get it right and most parents do the best with what they learned, or unlearned, from their own parents.

Samantha, a parenting content creator on TikTok under the name Raising Self, has been working hard to overcome generational trauma and parent her children differently. Recently she was doing a live video to interact with her followers when one of her children made a stunning revelation: he was scared of her.

You could tell by her expression that his confession was a surprise, and though her son barely took his eyes off the video game he was playing, the two had a very meaningful dialogue. Instead of being upset or even happy that her child was fearful, she responded with curiosity.

Some people believe that children should be fearful of their parents in order to respect them, but the exchange Samantha had with her son turned that thought process on its head. He started off the conversation by saying, "I know this might be a little shocking but I do sometimes actually find you a little scary." When Samantha probed him a little she found that what's causing him to be fearful is when her "grandma instincts come out," referring to a generational pattern that his mother has been trying hard not to repeat.

Samantha didn't hesitate with her response: "Yeah, I did not know that. I'm sorry that you're experiencing that." She continued, "When it's happening, please call it out. Cause that allows me to understand what behaviors I'm not doing a good job mitigating." Even though she was shocked, the conversation didn't end there. It's a beautiful exchange that can guide other parents on how to navigate these types of conversations.

Watch the entire conversation below:


This article originally appeared on 12.21.22

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