+
More

Behind the scenes with a dad who gained internet fame tweeting about his 4 daughters.

When it comes to capturing the humor of parenting, James Breakwell is a pro.

James Breakwell has four daughters between the ages of 1 and 6, well over half a million Twitter followers, and an unfailing sense of humor.

James with three of his daughters. Image via James Breakwell, used with permission.

Known on Facebook and Twitter as Exploding Unicorn, Breakwell has been sharing his and his wife's parenting adventures with the world since 2012. He writes about the joys and sorrows of fathering four girls, proving that humor can be found in even the smallest moments.


Breakwell with his daughters dressed up as Harry Potter characters for Halloween. Image via James Breakwell, used with permission.

Like any father, Breakwell enjoys watching his kids grow up.

He loves watching their personalities change along with their likes and dislikes. "It’s fun to see what my daughters take an interest in and what they reject out of hand," he explained in an email.

For now, the girls have a wide variety of hobbies. "They love princesses, sci-fi, and zombies, and it all gets blended together in games that are as weird as they are loud," Breakwell said. Only time will tell what those games turn into when there are four teenagers in the house.

Raising four daughters comes with a unique set of challenges. But, Breakwell said, "whether it’s math, science, or zombie slaying, I teach my kids that both genders are equal at everything that matters."

"Ultimately, I don’t know what it means to be a woman any more than they do right now," he continued. "It’s up to them to define that for themselves. I just have to make sure they’re confident enough to deal with any challenge, regardless of if it’s a sexist boss or an undead monster."

And to their credit (and their parents'), the girls seem to be doing pretty well as far as confidence goes.

Family photo time with four young kids. Image via James Breakwell, used with permission.

What's the secret to getting such great tweets? Breakwell wrote that he spends all his time listening to his kids.

"I don't have a choice," he said. "They never stop talking."

And with four kids, he's got a lot of material to work with. Enough, actually, for an entire book. "Only Dead on the Inside: A Parent’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse" is a work in progress, scheduled to be published in late 2017. It'll be a combination of parenting tips, a zombie survival guide, and the same humor that gained Breakwell his internet fame to start with.

The kids love being the subject of their dad's Twitter and are pretty convinced that he's a celebrity. Breakwell's wife, he explained, used to think the whole thing was a waste of time, but she's become more supportive as he's managed to secure a few ads.

Overall, Breakwell described his parenting style as "results-oriented."

"The ends justify the means," he said. "If my kids survive, I did a good job."

His advice for other fathers is similarly lighthearted: "Don't worry too much. Kids are more durable than you think."

Of course, there are tons of great dads like Breakwell (minus the Twitter account and a daughter or two) who are doing their best to help their daughters grow up well. The only difference is that in Breakwell's case, we all get to share in the comedy.

A behind-the-scenes look at a family photo shoot. Image via James Breakwell, used with permission.

All photos courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company

Behind the Scenes Making Recycled Records with Mark Ronson

True

You’re walking down the sidewalk, earbuds in, listening to your favorite hip-hop beats. As your head bobs to the sounds, the sun warms your back. It’s a perfect day.

When the chorus hits, the empty Sprite bottle in your hand becomes a drumstick, passing traffic becomes a sea of concertgoers, and the concrete beneath your feet is suddenly a stage. Spinning on your heels, you close out the song with your face to the sky and hands in the air.

Keep ReadingShow less
@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

Keep ReadingShow less

Baby Cora bears a striking resemblance to actor Woody Harrelson.

We can all get a little fascinated by doppelgängers and it's fun to find people who look alike. But what do you do when your baby girl looks uncannily like a famous middle-aged man?

Mom Dani Grier Mulvenna shared a photo of her infant daughter Cora side by side with a photo of Woody Harrelson on Twitter, with the caption "Ok but how does our daughter look like Woody Harrelson." The resemblance truly is remarkable, and the tweet quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of likes, shares and replies.

Keep ReadingShow less
Image by sasint/Canva

Surgeons prepared to separate 3-year-old conjoined twins in Brazil using virtual reality.

The things human beings have figured out how to do boggles the mind sometimes, especially in the realm of medicine.

It wasn't terribly long ago that people with a severe injury had to liquor up, bite a stick, have a body part sewn up or sawed off and hope for the best. (Sorry for the visual, but it's true.) The discoveries of antibiotics and anesthesia alone have completely revolutionized human existence, but we've gone well beyond that with what our best surgeons can accomplish.

Surgeries can range from fairly simple to incredibly complex, but few surgeries are more complicated than separating conjoined twins with combined major organs. That's why the recent surgical separation of conjoined twin boys with fused brains in Brazil is so incredible.

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

Unearthed BBC interview features two Victorian-era women discussing being teens in the 1800s

Frances 'Effy' Jones, one of the first women to be trained to use a typewriter and to take up cycling as a hobby, recalls life as a young working woman in London.

Two Victorian women discuss being teens in the 1800s.

There remains some mystery around what life was like in the 1800s, especially for teens. Most people alive today were not around in the Victorian era when the technologies now deemed old-fashioned were a novelty. In this rediscovered 1970s clip from the BBC, two elderly women reminisce about what it was like being teenagers during a time when the horse and buggy was still the fastest way to get around.

Keep ReadingShow less
via Pexels

Parents who just can't stop fighting

Whitney Goodman, a licensed marriage and family therapist, shared a video about kids who grew up in homes where their parents were always fighting, which made many people feel seen. It also started a conversation about who deserves more empathy in the parent-child relationship: the parents or the children.

Goodman is known as the “radically honest” psychotherapist and the author of “Toxic Positivity: Keeping it Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy.”

"If you grew up in this kind of house, you may have noticed that your family would split off into different alliances or teams to try to manage the material discord. Because the marriage wasn't a good or safe foundation for the family, everybody else had to kind of go and form these new teams,” Goodman explained in an Instagram post.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

People fell in love with Marty the cat after his owner wrote a heartbreaking goodbye letter

“I know this is a small tragedy in the grand scheme of the world, but one that I feel acutely knowing that I expected many more years with my friend."

Photo by Juanita Swart on Unsplash

RIP Marty

Tons of people found themselves clicking on the trending hashtag #RIPMarty, expecting to hear tragic news about a celebrity of some sort.

Instead, they learned about Marty the cat, whose owner shared the most heartbreakingly beautiful goodbye letter following his passing. That letter quickly went viral online, leaving folks completely invested Marty's story, not to mention utterly devastated.

Will Menaker, who shared the letter on Twitter, began by sharing how he and Marty first met. Or more accurately, how Marty introduced himself by emerging from under a car and unapologetically following Menaker up to the steps of his apartment seeking pets. Eventually, as the weather began to get colder, Menaker experimented with bringing Marty inside.

“From that moment on I was in love. I wouldn’t say I ‘had’ a cat, but from then on I shared a house with a tuxedo cat I would name Marty,” Menaker wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less