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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.

Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

True

Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

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Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul|YouTube

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

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Family

Woman 'kidnaps' her baby to teach lazy husband a scary lesson

Did she go too far?

via Kroshka_Nastya/Freepik

A guy passes out on his bed eating pizza.

A 29-year-old woman had a baby girl, and after a brief maternity leave, she had to return to work. She couldn't afford childcare, so her husband, 35, reluctantly agreed to watch the baby while she was at work.

“It’s important to know that he’s been unemployed since 2021,” the woman wrote on Reddit’s AITA subforum. “He receives benefits. It’s also important to know that he’s extremely lazy. He doesn’t cook, clean, or help out in any way. I was nervous about leaving her home with her father, but I had no choice.”

The mother had reason to be worried about leaving her baby home alone with her husband, but in the beginning, things seemed fine. “When I came back from work, she was clean and sleeping. The next few times I came home, he was either playing with her, feeding her, or out for a walk with her. I was happy,” she wrote.

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Mom has the perfect response to teen son who refuses to do 'girl' chores

What exactly are "girl" chores, anyway?

via Krampus Production/Pexels

A boy doing the dishes.

A 41-year-old mom with 3 boys, 12-year-old twins, and a 10-year-old, pays them $10 daily to do their chores. However, their pay is deducted $10 if they miss a day. The boys have to do their tasks 5 days a week, although it doesn’t matter which days they choose to work.

“This system has worked swimmingly for us since it started, the boys have always complied with completing their chores,” the mom wrote on Reddit.

Her 12-year-old son was getting ready to play Fortnite with a friend and told him he’d be ready in 15 minutes once he finished his chores. When the boys started playing the game, he told the friend he was in charge of dusting and sweeping the stairs, to which the friend responded, “It’s a good thing my parents don’t make me do girl chores.”

After learning what the friend said, the mom told her son that chores are genderless.

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Health

Women do better when they have a group of strong female friends, study finds

We're stronger together.

Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Women do better when they have female friends.

Madeleine Albright once said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there's research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. "Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination," Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review.

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It's like having a road map for your goals.

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Joy

​Man goes all out for his squirrel neighbors, 'Richard' and 'Maxine,' and it's too sweet

His videos are like therapy.

@derrickdowneyjr/TikTok

Derrick Downey Jr. has been dubbed the 'squirrel whisperer.'

Most of us who live in the U.S. are used to looking out a window or walking out our front door and seeing squirrels. The cute, fluffy-tailed rodents often appear perfectly pettable, but they generally scamper away when humans get too close.

That is not the case for TikTok creator Derrick Downey Jr., however, as he has not only befriended his neighborhood squirrels but goes all out to help them live their best squirrel lives.

Downey shared a video in May of 2022 in which he chats with a couple of squirrels on his porch while feeding them and offering them water. That video received over 26 million views and kicked off a whole series of videos showcasing the adorable antics of Richard, Maxine, Hector, Consuela, Norma (may she rest in peace), and Hood Rat Raymond. He's built Richard a house, rescued Maxine's babies, mourned Norma's transition (to wherever squirrels go when they die) and more.

People can't get enough, and who can blame them? Squirrels are the best (when they're not tearing up your patio furniture and stealing cotton for their nest, as Downey has experienced.)

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Education

Voice recordings of people who were enslaved offer incredible first-person accounts of U.S. history

"The results of these digitally enhanced recordings are arresting, almost unbelievable. The idea of hearing the voices of actual slaves from the plantations of the Old South is as powerful—as startling, really—as if you could hear Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee speak." - Ted Koppel

Library of Congress

When we think about the era of American slavery, many of us tend to think of it as the far distant past. While slavery doesn't exist as a formal institution today, there are people living who knew formerly enslaved black Americans first-hand. In the wide arc of history, the legal enslavement of people on U.S. soil is a recent occurrence—so recent, in fact, that we have voice recordings of interviews with people who lived it.

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history
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