Millennial mom asks her own mom about raising a kid in the 80s and is mortified
"What did you do without Google?!"
Raising kids is tough no matter what generation you fall into, but it’s hard to deny that there was something much simpler about the childrearing days of yesteryear, before the internet offered a million and one ways that parents could be—and probably are—doing it all very, very wrong.
Taylor Wolfe, a millennial mom, exemplifies this as she asks her own mother a series of rapid-fire questions about raising her during the 80s and the stark contrast in attitudes becomes blatantly apparent.
First off, Wolfe can’t comprehend how her mom survived without being able to Google everything. (Not even a parent, but I feel this.)
“What did we have to Google?” her mom asks while shaking her head incredulously.
“Everything! For starters, poop!” Wolfe says. “Cause you have to know if the color is an okay color, if it's healthy!”
“I was a nursing mom, so if the poop came out green, it was because I ate broccoli,” her mom responds.
…Okay, fair point. But what about handy gadgets like baby monitors? How did Wolfe’s mom keep her kid alive without one?
“I was the monitor, going in and feeling you,” she says.
@thedailytay My anxiety would have hated the 80s. Or maybe loved it? IDK! #fyp #millennialsontiktok #parenttok #momsoftiktok #comedyvid ♬ original sound - TaylorWolfe
Could it really be that easy? It was for Wolfe’s mom, apparently. Rather than relying on technology, she simply felt her child and adjusted accordingly.
“If you were hot, you slept in a diaper. If you were cold, you had a blanket around you.” Done and done.
Wolfe then got into more existential questions, asking her mom if she ever felt the stress of “only having 18 summers” with her child, and how to make the most of it.
Without missing a beat, Wolfe's mother says, “It's summer, I still have you.”
Going by Wolfe’s mom, the 80s seems like a time with much less pressure.
From feeding her kids McDonald’s fries guilt-free to being spared the judgment of internet trolls, she just sort of did the thing without worrying so much if she was doing it correctly.
That’s nearly impossible in today’s world, as many viewers commented.
“Google just gives us too much information and it scares us,” one person quipped.
Another seconded, “I swear social media has made me wayyyy more of an anxious mom."
Even a professional noted: “As someone who has worked in pediatrics since the 80s, the parents are way more anxious now.”
I don’t think anyone truly wants to go back in time, per se. But many of us are yearning to bring more of this bygone mindset into the modern day. And the big takeaway here: No matter how many improvements we make to life, if the cost is our mental state, then perhaps it’s time to swing the pendulum back a bit.
This article originally appeared on 8.24.23
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Men try to read the most disturbing comments women get online back to them.
If you wouldn't say it to their faces, don't type it.
This isn’t comfortable to talk about.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
A recent video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they're just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
Awful.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League's most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league's top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn't writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn't receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their jobs.
Not saying it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There's evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is.
They did a study of over 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006. They counted how many comments that violated their comment policy were blocked.
The stats were staggering.
From their comprehensive and disturbing article:
If you can’t say it to their face... don’t type it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
So what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it's not OK to talk to anyone like that.
Watch the whole video below:
.This article originally appeared on 04.27.16