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upworthy

A mom listed all the things she worries about, and it's going viral.

Mom Cameron Poynter was having A DAY. Like so many moms, it often felt like she was juggling the world — groceries to buy, laundry to do, tantrums to quell, appointments to keep. It was a million little things, but they all added up in a very real way. She was emotionally exhausted. And she knew she wasn't alone in feeling this way.

Poynter took to Facebook to give a much needed salute to her fellow moms-in-arms, knowing that a little appreciation can go a long way.

"I am the keeper," she began her post. "I am the keeper of schedules ... I am the keeper of information ... I am the keeper of solutions ... I am the keeper of the peace."


"Most of the time, the weight of these things I keep resembles the upper elements on the periodic table — lighter than air, buoying me with a sense of purpose. But sometimes the weight of the things I keep pulls me down below the surface until I am kicking and struggling to break the surface and gasp for breath."

"I see you. And I salute you," she wrote to moms everywhere.

You can read her full post, which has gone viral, below:

I am the keeper.I am the keeper of schedules. Of practices, games, and lessons. Of projects, parties, and dinners. Of...

Posted by Lucky Orange Pants on Monday, September 18, 2017

What Poynter brilliantly described here is a phenomenon known as "emotional labor." Most women are all too familiar with the concept.

Emotional labor is the invisible work of absorbing other people's stress, identifying and managing others' feelings, and taking on all the responsibility of keeping relationships and families on track.

This is different from the division of labor: Who takes out the garbage or does the dishes. It's about who recognizes that those things need to be done in the first place and the mental space those tasks take up. It's about who remembers that Susie doesn't like mushrooms on her pizza but that Billy will freak out if there aren't mushrooms. It's about who has to remember to get a card and a gift for those three birthday parties coming up this weekend.

"Historically, women have been the primary caregivers for their children and while they now make up half of the work force, it takes a lot longer for cultural norms to adjust," Poynter explains over e-mail. "All of those historical norms are changing and truthfully nothing would make me happier than to have one or both of my boys grow up to be stay at home dads."

Poynter says the reaction to her post, which has been shared close to 94,000 times, has been overwhelming.

"I have heard from hundreds of people — friends and strangers — who told me they desperately needed to hear someone say 'I see you. What you do matters. You are not alone,'" she says.

Her message is inspiring, but maybe it's time this kind of praise (or better yet, help) starts coming from the men, partners, and grown children who tend to benefit from all that work.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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A woman looking at her phone while sitting on the toilet.


One of the most popular health trends over the last few years has been staying as hydrated as possible, evidenced by the massive popularity of 40-oz Stanely Quencher cups. The theory among those who obsess over hydration is that, when you pee clear, you’ve removed all the waste in your body and are enjoying the incredible benefits of being 100% hydrated. Congratulations.

However, according to Dr. Sermed Mezher, an NHS doctor in the UK, peeing clear isn’t always a sign of being healthy.

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Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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Innovation

A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

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