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Joy

3-year-old perfectly articulates what makes friendship so beautiful

Emi's adorable description of her friend Frankie reflects friendship at all stages of life.

preschooler, bike, parenting, friendship

Preschoolers are the best philosophers.

Preschoolers make the best philosophers, especially when they surprise us by simplifying something in a truly profound way.

Take, for example, little Emi, who managed to sum up the meaning of friendship perfectly at just 3 years old.

Katy-Robin Garton was riding Emi home on her bike during her first week of preschool when they started talking about Emi's day. Garton is a documentary filmmaker in Missoula, Montana, and she had a GoPro attached to the bike for something else she was filming. She also had Emi mic'd up because she likes to be able to hear her talking while they ride together.

"I've always had really lovely conversations with the kids on the ride home on the bike or in the car," Garton tells Upworthy. She has learned through interviewing people for documentaries that how you ask questions makes all the difference. Rather than asking her kids "How was your day?" or "What did you do today?" she asks them specific questions to trigger their memories about the day, which helps to get them to open up.


On this ride, Garton asked Emi who she had sat next to at her table at school that day. That got Emi talking about her friend Frankie, and the conversation evolved into a beautiful testimony of friendship that people of all ages can appreciate.

Garton asked Emi what she loves about Frankie, and Emi said she was funny, which led to a revelation about how friends can bring out our funny sides.

"When she laughs, that makes me that I'm funny," said Emi. "When she puts some of her funniness into myness, she makes me even funnier, and she still has that funniness." Maybe a 3-year-old way of saying it, but it makes perfect sense.

Then she hit at the heart of what friendship is as she described how Frankie makes her feel better when she's not OK.

"When I get super scared and new teachers are with me, I just run over to Frankie. And I'm still crying, and then she laughs, and then I laugh, and then we just get better and better and better and better.

"She's my best friend in the whole entire world. I wish she could be with us because she is the special-est."

So. Darn. Sweet. And honestly, so profound in such a simple way. Friends are the people we can run to when we're upset and who help us feel better just by being themselves.

Garton is raising three young children—two 3-year-olds and a 6-year-old—and she's conscientious about talking through feelings with her kids. However, Emi's deep thoughts on this bike ride still took her by surprise.

"I hadn't talked to her about how friends make us feel," says Garton. "I mean maybe I did over time, because we're always having mindful conscious conversations—we try to—with our kids about 'How does someone make you feel? Do you like being around them?' Those kinds of thoughts. But she's kind of put it together on her own."

Garton says the response to her and Emi's conversation made it clear that Emi's musings on her friendship with Frankie are what we all need to hear.

"We forget to check in, like, 'What do I need in a friendship? How should a friendship make me feel?' as adults, and here was my 3-year-old talking about it in such a simple way," says Garton. "And the response that I saw from people was so heartwarming, just thousands of people tagging their besties, saying 'You're my Frankie!' It was just beautiful. Like it wasn't just for parents, it was for everyone."

If you have a Frankie in your life, be sure to let them know they're the special-est. For more of Emi's adorable wisdom, follow @katyrobinbird on Instagram.

Identity

Celebrate International Women's Day with these stunning photos of female leaders changing the world

The portraits, taken by acclaimed photographer Nigel Barker, are part of CARE's "She Leads the World" campaign.

Images provided by CARE

Kadiatu (left), Zainab (right)

True

Women are breaking down barriers every day. They are transforming the world into a more equitable place with every scientific discovery, athletic feat, social justice reform, artistic endeavor, leadership role, and community outreach project.

And while these breakthroughs are happening all the time, International Women’s Day (Mar 8) is when we can all take time to acknowledge the collective progress, and celebrate how “She Leads the World.

This year, CARE, a leading global humanitarian organization dedicated to empowering women and girls, is celebrating International Women’s Day through the power of portraiture. CARE partnered with high-profile photographer Nigel Barker, best known for his work on “America’s Next Top Model,” to capture breathtaking images of seven remarkable women who have prevailed over countless obstacles to become leaders within their communities.

“Mabinty, Isatu, Adama, and Kadiatu represent so many women around the world overcoming incredible obstacles to lead their communities,” said Michelle Nunn, President and CEO of CARE USA.

Barker’s bold portraits, as part of CARE’s “She Leads The World” campaign, not only elevate each woman’s story, but also shine a spotlight on how CARE programs helped them get to where they are today.

About the women:

Mabinty

international womens day, care.org

Mabinty is a businesswoman and a member of a CARE savings circle along with a group of other women. She buys and sells groundnuts, rice, and fuel. She and her husband have created such a successful enterprise that Mabinty volunteers her time as a teacher in the local school. She was the first woman to teach there, prompting a second woman to do so. Her fellow teachers and students look up to Mabinty as the leader and educator she is.

Kadiatu

international womens day, care.org

Kadiatu supports herself through a small business selling food. She also volunteers at a health clinic in the neighboring village where she is a nursing student. She tests for malaria, works with infants, and joins her fellow staff in dancing and singing with the women who visit the clinic. She aspires to become a full-time nurse so she can treat and cure people. Today, she leads by example and with ambition.

Isatu

international womens day, care.org

When Isatu was three months pregnant, her husband left her, seeking his fortune in the gold mines. Now Isatu makes her own way, buying and selling food to support her four children. It is a struggle, but Isatu is determined to be a part of her community and a provider for her kids. A single mother of four is nothing if not a leader.

Zainab

international womens day, care.org

Zainab is the Nurse in Charge at the Maternal Child Health Outpost in her community. She is the only nurse in the surrounding area, and so she is responsible for the pre-natal health of the community’s mothers-to-be and for the safe delivery of their babies. In a country with one of the world’s worst maternal death rates, Zainab has not lost a single mother. The community rallies around Zainab and the work she does. She describes the women who visit the clinic as sisters. That feeling is clearly mutual.

Adama

international womens day, care.org

Adama is something few women are - a kehkeh driver. A kehkeh is a three-wheeled motorcycle taxi, known elsewhere as a tuktuk. Working in the Kissy neighborhood of Freetown, Adama is the primary breadwinner for her family, including her son. She keeps her riders safe in other ways, too, by selling condoms. With HIV threatening to increase its spread, this is a vital service to the community.

Ya Yaebo

international womens day, care.org

“Ya” is a term of respect for older, accomplished women. Ya Yaebo has earned that title as head of her local farmers group. But there is much more than that. She started as a Village Savings and Loan Association member and began putting money into her business. There is the groundnut farm, her team buys and sells rice, and own their own oil processing machine. They even supply seeds to the Ministry of Agriculture. She has used her success to the benefit of people in need in her community and is a vocal advocate for educating girls, not having gone beyond grade seven herself.

On Monday, March 4, CARE will host an exhibition of photography in New York City featuring these portraits, kicking off the multi-day “She Leads the World Campaign.

Learn more, view the portraits, and join CARE’s International Women's Day "She Leads the World" celebration at CARE.org/sheleads.


Health

Over or under? Surprisingly, there actually is a 'correct' way to hang a toilet paper roll.

Let's settle this silly-but-surprisingly-heated debate once and for all.

Elya/Wikimedia Commons

Should you hang the toilet paper roll over or under?



Upworthy book

Humans have debated things large and small over the millennia, from the democracy to breastfeeding in public to how often people ought to wash their sheets.

But perhaps the most silly-yet-surprisingly-heated household debate is the one in which we argue over which way to hang the toilet paper roll.

The "over or under" question has plagued marriages and casual acquaintances alike for over 100 years, with both sides convinced they have the soundest reasoning for putting their toilet paper loose end out or loose end under. Some people feel so strongly about right vs. wrong TP hanging that they will even flip the roll over when they go to the bathroom in the homes of strangers.

Contrary to popular belief, it's not merely an inconsequential preference. There is actually a "correct" way to hang toilet paper, according to health experts as well as the man who invented the toilet paper roll in the first place.

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Photo from Pexels.

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When Hassell gave her daughter the pencil case, she threw it in the bin complaining that everyone already had it. That's when Hassell decided to teach her daughter the perfect lesson.

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Some girls out at a bchelorette party.

A recent story posted on Reddit shows how sometimes trusting your gut can be the best thing you can do, even if following it will seriously impact your friendships. It all started when a 24-year-old woman with the username Yslbabycat went to a bachelorette party with 5 other friends in Italy.

For brevity’s sake, we’ll call our main character YBC.

One night, the six girls went bar and club hopping and met some new friends. “We met some young people, and they invited us to a party. We went and danced and met more people. The night kept going on longer, and we were very far from our lodgings. These young men with 2 women in their group told us to stay with them for the night,” she wrote.

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In the case of Poe, it was his fiction that was, well, stranger than fiction.


I'm pretty positive that Edgar Allan Poe had (has?) the power to travel through time. Hear me out on this one.

It's not just the well-known circumstances of his life — orphaned at a young age, father of the mystery novel, master of cryptology, maestro of the macabre. Nor am I referring to the head-scratching details of the days leading up to his death: how he was found on the street near a voting poll wearing someone else's clothes, and during his subsequent hospitalization, he was alleged to babble incoherently about an unidentified person named “Reynolds."

And I won't even get into the confounding reports of a nameless figure who, for seven decades, would show up to Poe's gravesite in the early hours of his birthday with a glass of cognac and three roses.


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When her 5-year-old broke his leg, this mom raised $0. It's actually inspiring.

Her crowdfunding alternative is so obvious, it's shocking America hasn't taken advantage of it.


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Photo via iStock.

Freddie was doing tricks down the stairs of his front porch when he fell off his bike — and his bike fell on him.

"[He was] just crying, wouldn't let us touch his leg, couldn't put any weight on his leg. We knew," mom Ashley says.

Ashley rushed Freddie to the emergency room, where an X-ray confirmed the bones in his left shin were broken in half. He needed to be sedated, his bones set and put in a cast. It was an agonizing day for the Teers. But it's what happened next that was truly inspiring.

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Certain people have an innate ability to remember random facts. They are great at trivia but can also be insufferable know-it-alls.

So why are some people better at recalling random facts than others? Researchers in Europe believe that it's because their brains are more efficiently wired than other people's.

"We assume that more efficient networking of the brain contributes to better integration of pieces of information and thus leads to better results in a general knowledge test," biopsychologist Erhan Genc, from Ruhr University Bochum, said according to Science Alert.

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