Dad recounts the epic tale of racing to the birth of his child after fainting

Childbirth can be chaotic. But this is next level.

Apr 3, 2024

Photo credit: LukeEpplin/X – This is one epic birth story

One dad is delighting readers on X with an epic tale of nearly missing his daughter’s birth after fainting. His story of rushing to make it in time feels like something straight out of a movie—complete with a happy ending.

Luke Epplin’s wife had gone into labor on a Friday. Most of that night, and all of Saturday, Epplin stayed awake, waiting. Finally, on Sunday, he began to doze off. That’s when he got word that his wife had gone into active labor.

And this is where our hilarious saga begins.

“I got on my feet, threw on my clothes, and then was thrust in the middle of the action. Whether because of exhaustion, lack of food, or having just gotten up, I don’t remember anything else. I fainted,” he wrote.

I was awoken at four in the morning today (Sunday) to active labor. I got on my feet, threw on my clothes, and then was thrust in the middle of the action. Whether because of exhaustion, lack of food, or having just gotten up, I don’t remember anything else. I fainted.
— Luke Epplin (@LukeEpplin) March 26, 2024

When he finally woke up, blood was “oozing” from his head and he was whisked away to the emergency room. EMT’s told him he might need a CT scan, “which would make me miss the birth of my daughter.”

Thankfully, all that Epplin ended up needing was staples. Which meant it was all smooth sailing from here on out, right? Guess again.

There was still a “massive” hospital to navigate, the nurse guiding him through the multiple hallways was called away on an emergency. Leaving him to make it through the labyrinth to the opposite side, with nothing but some verbal directions the nurse had given him. Which somehow got him to the bone marrow center.

“Granted, I’m in the clothes I slept in, with a massive white bandage wrapped around my head, like something you’d see in a World War I movie,” he wrote. As he frantically tried to tell another nurse that his was was in labor, she said, “I think you need to see security.”

I told him the same thing: “My wife is in labor!” Again, he looked at me, bandage and all, patient tag on my wrist, and said, “Sir, I’m gonna need to see some discharge papers.” I had no ID, no visitor’s badge, no cellphone, nothing. Suddenly, it dawned on me: I’m in trouble.
— Luke Epplin (@LukeEpplin) March 26, 2024

Cut to Epplin saying the same thing to a security guard, who asks to see some discharge papers. That’s when Epplin realizes he has nothing on him. No papers, no ID, no visitors badge. Not even a cellphone.

Pulling a Hail Mary, Epplin told the guard the truth: that he had fainted while his wife was in labor, cut a gash into his head, got that treated, and then got himself lost. That must have done the trick, because the guard let him out.

Epplin had to sprint down two blocks (in slippers, mind you) and get past a parking valet and yet another security guard before making it up to the 10th floor of the correct building and into the maternity ward. By this time, he had somehow become famous.

“The attendant looked at me, and said, ‘Oh, you’re the guy everyone’s talking about,” he recalled.

Epplin’s determination ultimately paid off. He had made it before his daughter Ava had been born. Below is their first photo together, head bandages and all.

I dashed into the maternity ward, the attendant looked at me, and said, “Oh, you’re the guy everyone’s talking about.” I came back to my daughter not yet born. My wife asked how it went. I said, “I’ll tell you later.” An hour later, this photo was taken. pic.twitter.com/cke7bbmlmS
— Luke Epplin (@LukeEpplin) March 26, 2024

“Every picture of me during Ava’s first day on Earth looks like this. I hope that she has a good sense of humor about it some day.”

It’s not completely uncommon for soon-to-be dads to faint in the delivery room. Often, as it seemed to be in Epplin’s case, the cause is low blood sugar. So it might be wise to pack snacks, drinks and meals in a cooler, according to Father Resource. Of course, packing snacks might be the last thing that’s on a father’s mind when the time comes.

But the point is: the situation is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it can make for a great birth story. Just ask Epplin!

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In Partnership With Habitat For Humanity →

Homeowners celebrate the completion of their new home in Cambodia's Siem Reap Province alongside Habitat for Humanity volunteers and staff.

Culture, Family

A safe, stable home can change lives for the better. Here’s how Habitat for Humanity wants to make that possible for everyone.

Better health, better jobs, and a brighter future all start with access to a safe, affordable home.

Sarah Watts

3/25/2026
A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.

Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.

A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.

Volunteers raise a wall for the framework of a new home during the first day of building at Habitat for Humanity’s 2025 Carter Work Project.

Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.

Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.

Marsha and her son pose for a photo while building their future home with Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity in Georgia.

Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.

Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:
- Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
- Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
- Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60+ countries where we work around the globe
- Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
- Shop or donate at your local Habitat ReStore
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.

Visit habitat.org/open-door to learn more and get involved today.
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Photo credit: Canva.com – Woman smiles while looking at her phone

Culture, Generations

A teacher came back from vacation to find “concerned” emails from parents. She couldn’t stop laughing.

“This teacher’s inbox is peak community.”

Tim Mercer

4/19/2026

Ms. B, a 42-year-old teacher in Minnesota, left school on a Friday for a weekend trip to Mexico. When she got back she found emails from some of her students’ parents waiting for her. She wasn’t expecting much. She posted a video reading them on her Instagram page, @tlcwithmsb, and it has since been viewed more than 2 million times.

Minnesota teacher is not so vanilla

The first one started warmly — “I hope you are having a great time relaxing, you deserve it” — and then pivoted to business. The parent had heard Ms. B was in Mexico and had one request: real vanilla. Not the kind you get in Minnesota. The good stuff. She offered to Venmo her for the trouble.

Ms. B couldn’t fulfill the order. Her school district had blocked her email access during the vacation, so she didn’t see the message until she was already home.

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The second email was from a parent concerned about sunburns. She had a home remedy, she explained. She would make it herself. Ms. B just had to come pick it up. “That’s seriously so sweet… I might actually try it,” Ms. B said in her video.

Parents made sure she wasn’t stranded

The third came after Ms. B had posted a separate video in a mild panic. She’d accidentally booked her return flight for Monday instead of Sunday and couldn’t easily afford to rebook. A parent watched it and immediately emailed with a solution: Ms. B was welcome to stay at her second cousin’s uncle’s place.

View this post on Instagram

Ms. B said in her video that parents like these don’t get enough credit. The comment section agreed, filling up with people who said the emails were a perfect picture of what the right kind of school community actually looks like — the kind where the parents are as invested in their teacher as they are in their kids.

The vanilla, for what it’s worth, remains undelivered.

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Photo credit: via Christian Buehner/Unsplash – Baby boomers didn't get everything wrong.

Culture, Generations

17 strong opinions the baby boomers actually got right, according to younger generations

Not everything needs to be a touchscreen.

Tod Perry

Upworthy Staff

4/19/2026

In recent years, baby boomers have often been the target of criticism from younger generations (by now you’ve definitely heard the dismissive OK, boomer catchphrase). The most common accusations are that boomers are selfish and don’t care about leaving ample resources (whether financial or environmental) to subsequent generations. They also come under fire for not being able to acknowledge that it was easier for people of their generation to come of age when things were more affordable and life was a lot less competitive.

However, we should also understand that many of today’s problems are not the boomers’ doing, especially when it comes to the issues that stem from entitled children and technology run amok. In hindsight, there’s something to be said about the importance boomers placed on self-reliance, letting kids be kids, and having a healthy skepticism towards technology.

In other words, the baby boomers were right! Well, about some things, anyway. In the end, each generation contributes to the tapestry of society in its unique way, whether good or bad, even baby boomers.

This became evident after a Reddit user asked the AskReddit subforum: ‘What is something you can say ‘I’m with the boomers on this one’ about?”

Thousands of people responded to the prompt, and the most prevalent problems mentioned by the younger generations were over-reliance on technology, the modern world’s lack of human touch, and how Gen Xers and millennials have raised their children.

Here are 17 things that younger people are “with the boomers” about.

1. Public filming

Public filming has, unquestionably, become a problem. From shaming random folks in the gym to humiliating people dancing at concerts (not to mention catching cheaters), fear of being filmed without your knowledge or consent in public is a real thing people suffer from. The boomers were definitely wise to be wary of cell phone cameras!

“Just because I’m in public doesn’t mean I want to be filmed. Yeah, I know legally you can, but common courtesy people.” – Jayne_of_Canton

2. Customer service

In the age of AI chatbots that are, more often than not, completely useless, I think we can all agree with this one:

“I want to talk to a person in customer service, not a machine.” – lumpy_space_queenie

“And also a person that actually works at the company I bought the product from, not a teenager at an outsourced call center with a script to follow and who answers calls for 15 different companies on the same day.” – Loive

3. Turn up the dialogue

“For the love of all that is holy, can we fix the audio in movies so that the music and sound FX aren’t drowning out the dialogue?” – Caloso

“And the action sequences don’t burst your eardrums or the dialogue is whispers.” – Whynottry-again

Younger generations are on board with this, too. They’re all about subtitles, all the time.

4. Bring back buttons

“No, I don’t need everything in my car to be electronic. Some stuff needs buttons.” – LamborghiniHEAT

“This was the big thing for me in my last car – trying to adjust volume or change songs while driving is way more dangerous when it’s all touch screen. Thankfully my current car has physical knobs for everything.” – GeekdomCentral

This is another one where the boomers were right all along. Car manufacturers are even listening and making a big push to bring back physical buttons.

5. App overload

“Every store/service does not need an app.” – BigDigger324

“I was standing at a car rental counter at an airport (boomer here) to rent a car. My daughter’s car broke down on the way to pick me up. While standing at the counter, with a customer service rep right there and not busy, I had to log in to their site, create an account, and reserve a car. It seemed ridiculous and it took a long time, filling in my license information and all that. This was last September.” – Cleanslate

Yep, the boomers were definitely right here. The more apps you have on your phone, the more likely some obscure security vulnerability will end up with your data getting leaked.

6. Bring back DIY

“Learning DIY skills is crucial. I had basically zero DIY skills when I bought my house because I had lived in apartments for so long and I’ve had to learn a lot. YouTube tutorials are absolutely clutch.” – JingleJongleBongle

7. Turn off the speakerphone

“I hated this when I worked at Walmart. So many of my coworkers would talk on speaker or watch TikTok at full volume. It’s just trashy imo, nobody wants to hear your media.” – WhiteGuy1x

“I work at an emergency medical office and holy sh*t the amount of people that sit in a quiet, peaceful lobby and just have the LOUDEST conversations on their phone…. Speaker or otherwise. Not to mention the people that still watch sh*t without headphones. Like do you not see the plethora of other people around you that you’re disturbing?” – Cinderpuppins

8. Ban QR code menus

“I think menus should be tangible.” – Limp-Management9684

“QR codes kill the vibe. We’re all on our phones constantly throughout the day and then when you go to spend some quality time with someone, it’s another excuse to whip out the phone and stare at it. There’s an intimacy to a physical menu. You’re looking at what the other person is reading, you’re each pointing to parts of the menu. You’re noticing the lighting of the restaurant. QR codes feel chintzy and kill the ambiance completely.” – VapeDerp420

We get it, these are for sure a byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it’s beyond time to bring back the bulky, laminated menus we all know and love.

9. Stop subscriptions

“When I was your age, you only had to pay for a video game once to own it.” – CattonCruthby

Can you imagine a world where you could just buy Microsoft Word and not get charged every year for it? Yeah, that world used to exist. Even some cars are charging drivers subscriptions to “activate” certain features. Seriously.

10. Free the children

“A kid should have the same freedom to exist unsupervised and move about their community independently as a boomer did growing up.” – PixelatedFish

“The world is safer than it’s ever been and people are more scared than ever. I blame true crime and local news.” – Unhappyhippo142

This is an idea that’s been gaining a lot of steam in popular culture, and the boomers were at the forefront. Perhaps kids aren’t too anxious to walk to school alone; they’re anxious because we don’t let them walk to school alone.

11. Kids need to touch grass

“Kids shouldn’t be on phones or iPads all the time. It makes them weird.” – Ubstantial_Part_952

“The same could be said about most adults.” – DrunkOctopus

12. Stop being so sensitive

“People in our generation are far, far too sensitive. Don’t get it twisted; empathy is, by and large, a good thing and it takes some serious doing for me to say it’s gone too far. But collectively, we’ve become people willing to throw every last bit of energy fighting against every slight and making sure our pet cause gets top billing to the point of fighting amongst each other even if we’re in almost complete agreement otherwise. Emotional energy – like any other kind of energy – is very much a finite resource. Whereas boomers could at least generally agree to disagree and get on with things (obvious cross-wielding exceptions doth apply). Culturally, we’ve lost sight of the adage of ‘winning the battle, losing the war.’” – almighty_smiley

Agreeing to disagree, to a certain acceptable extent, is a lost art. The way we’re all disagreeing now is completely exhausting.

13. Stop delivery

“Food delivery services are a complete ripoff; if you use them regularly, you’re terrible with money. Get off my lawn.” – VapeDerp420

14. Parking meters

“So rather than throwing a few coins in your meter, you have to now get your license plate #, get your meter number, go to the meter station, stand in line with everyone waiting to pay their meter, then you’re set. It’s an unnecessary amount of extra steps. I don’t carry cash much anymore, but I can hide a small amount of coin in my car to quickly pay a meter.” – Luke5119

Even better is when you have to download a Parking app so you can pay the city money to park! The boomers love that one, and so do the rest of us.

15. Kids should know their place

“Not letting your children rule the roost. When did it become acceptable to let your kids back-talk to you, slap you, climb all over sh*t in public places? As we’ve raised ours, I’ve witnessed so many parents around us just let these behaviors slide. It’s kind of sad when I’m the one saying things like, “Did I just hear you just say that to your mom?!?!?!?! That is not ok. You go and apologize right now!!”. Then I get this stunned “deer in headlights” look back that tells me they aren’t used to someone calling them out on their behavior.” – Cobblestone-Villain

Gentle parenting definitely has its merits and benefits, but the boomers were right to be a little bit skeptical: In the wrong hands, it can backfire tremendously.

16. Pride in ownership

“Seems that a lot of boomers have pride of ownership and enjoy maintaining what they have.” – Awkward_Bench123

17. Don’t follow leaders

“My dad (a solid boomer) has been saying that ALL politicians are crooks since he became disenchanted with politics around the Nixon era. He was starry-eyed before that, trying to make social change, yada yada. He still votes, but holds his nose. Can’t say I disagree with him.” – Thin_white_duchess

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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Photo credit: Daily Show/Youtube, Canva – Journalist Ronan Farrow explains how turning off your phone each night can protect you from getting hacked

Culture, Pop Culture, Science, Technology

Investigative journalist reveals the simple way you can protect your phone from getting hacked

His simple tip can offer protection in a time of less-than-stellar privacy regulations.

Heather Wake

Upworthy Staff

4/19/2026

There are just so many ways for important information held on your phone to be swiped—from subscription based apps that secretly send private customer data to Facebook to fake accounts that get your friends to invest in some kind of fake crypto.

And of course—this is more than a modern day inconvenience. It poses real threats to democracy and global human rights, which is why so many are calling for more regulations and safeguards. Of course, as with most regulations, change isn’t coming fast. Which isn’t good news, considering how rapidly technology evolves.

However, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow has an incredibly simple tip for preventing our phones from being hacked: Turn them off more often.

Why Ronan Farrow says we should all be ‘freaking out’

While appearing on the Daily Show to promote his new documentary, Surveilled, Farrow told host Desi Lydic that we as a society should be “freaking out” more about the lack of government restraints about spyware technology, saying that it could turn the country “into an Orwellian surveillance state,” affecting anyone who uses a device, essentially—not just political dissidents.

But, as Farrow noted, turning your phone off and on every day is an easy way to protect yourself, since most current forms of spyware “will be foiled by a reboot.” And even if you aren’t, say, a journalist or a political activist (i.e. common targets for malware), you’re thwarting apps from monitoring your activity or collecting your data. And better still, you’re making it more difficult for hackers to steal information from your phone. Privacy protection aside, it’s a great way of just keeping your device healthy. Basically, it seems like the age-old solution for virtually all tech issues still holds up.

More easy steps you can take right now

Remembering to turn it off…that’s a different challenge altogether. Photo credit: Canva

There are a few other things worth turning off now and then, such as bluetooth and location devices when you’re not using them, according to the NSA. In addition, Farrow also suggested keeping devices updated, and perhaps most important of all, actually writing to your representative about the issue.

However, when it comes to wrapping devices in tinfoil as a makeshift Faraday cage…that might not be the best use of one’s aluminum.

“Experts vary on exactly how effective that approach is,” Farrow told Lydic, just before quipping, “we need better policies. Not just better tinfoil.”

The documentary that started it all

Expanding on Farrow’s 2022 New Yorker investagative exposé on the notorious spyware Pegasus, Surveilled, which is available to stream on Max, delves into the multibillion-dollar industry of commercial spyware and its potential threats, making it evidently clear that this is not an issue for the elite few, or one to ignore until the future.

View this post on Instagram

On a (slightly) brighter note, Farrow debuted another new work in 2025, this time a true crime investigative podcast, titled Not a Very Good Murderer, which he himself narrates. Find it on Audible.

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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Photo credit: via Mattew Barra/Pexels – There's one word you can't say on a cruise ship.

Culture, Pop Culture

Passenger on 274-day cruise is surprised to learn the one word you can’t say on the ship

“It’s like saying ‘Macbeth’ in a theater.”

Tod Perry

Upworthy Staff

4/19/2026

There are some things you just don’t say. You don’t yell out “bomb!” on an airplane, make jokes about carrying weapons while going through security, or, as Michael Scott from The Office knows, loudly proclaim that a boat you’re currently on is sinking.

Those are all pretty obvious examples, but sometimes etiquette and decorum are a little more subtle. If you’re not experienced in the ways of the venue you’re in, you might not know all the unspoken rules. And you might find out the hard way. Cruise ships, for example, have their own very specific set of rules and regulations that guests should abide by.

On December 10, 2023, Royal Caribbean’s Serenade to the Seas set sail on the Ultimate World Cruise—a 274-day global trek that visited 11 world wonders and over 60 countries.

This incredible trip covered the Americas, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Mediterranean and Europe with a ticket price that ranged from $53,999 to $117,599 per passenger.

With such a unique and incredible offering, it’s understandable that Royal Caribbean wanted to invite plenty of influencers to help them get the word out.

The TikToker who accidentally broke the biggest rule at sea

Aboard the Serenade to the Seas was TikToker Marc Sebastian, who has amassed over 2.5 million followers, documented his experience throughout the journey. In one video with over 5 million views, he revealed what he’s learned over his first few weeks aboard the ship; the biggest was the one word you’re not allowed to say.

“So here’s [what] I’ve learned about cruising since I’ve spent 18 nights on this floating retirement home with a Cheesecake Factory attached. First, number one, you’re not supposed to talk about the Titanic,” he says in the clip.

Titanic! It’s the ultimate taboo when you’re on a giant ship traversing the ocean. Even after all these years, it’s still too soon to make even lighthearted comparisons or jokes.

@marcsebastianf
someone get whoopi on the line girl i have some goss for her #ultimateworldcruise #worldcruise #serenadeoftheseas #cruisetok #cruise #9monthcruise #titanic
♬ original sound – Marc Sebastian

“Who knew that? I didn’t,” Sebastian said. “I brought it up to an entire room of people having lunch that our ship is only 100 feet longer than the Titanic – when I tell you that utensils dropped. Waiters gasped. It’s dead silent.”

The room went completely silent

Sebastian was flabbergasted. “It wasn’t in the… handbook,” he joked. “Not that I read the handbook, clearly.”

After the unexpected reaction, his cruise friend told him, “You’re not allowed to talk about the Titanic.” It makes sense.

Who wants to be reminded of the tragedy that killed around 1,500 people while sinking one of the most impressive engineering feats of the era? More experienced cruisers chimed in that they were familiar with the unique piece of etiquette.

“When I went on a cruise, my mom told me saying Titanic was equivalent to screaming ‘bomb’ at an airport,” Mikayla wrote in the comments.

“It’s like saying Macbeth in a theatre, it’s an unspoken rule” another commenter added.

“I’m sorry you’re telling me you had a Harry Potter like experience saying Voldemort at Hogwarts but it was the titanic on a modern day cruise I’m cryingggg” joked another.

Later in the video covering little known cruise facts, Sebastian admits he was surprised to learn that cruise ships have godmothers and that the pools are filled with seawater.

So, did he end up staying for all 274 days?

In an update from June of 2024, Sebastian explains that he only stayed on the cruise for 18 nights. He was not booked to stay throughout the entire voyage, and for him, that was a relief.

He initially jokes that he was kicked off the boat for saving a penguin that had jumped aboard. But in the end, he admits he was more than happy to deboard early.

“I walked off that ship not a happy man,” he said, saying the ship was overstimulating and stressful. In another video, he films as the ship navigates the Drake Passage, one of the most notoriously dangerous and choppy stretches of water in the world. It looks stressful indeed, to say the least.

Cruising isn’t for everyone, let alone for 274 days straight! But now Sebastian knows the golden rule for his next cruise.

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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Photo credit: Public domain – Gregory Maguire was inspired by a line in the original 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz."

Culture, Pop Culture

‘Wicked’ author reveals subtle clue in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ that Glinda and Elphaba were friends

“I fell down onto the ground laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together.”

Annie Reneau

Upworthy Staff

4/19/2026

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book or listened to a piece of music and wondered, “How did they come up with that idea?” The creative process is so enigmatic even artists themselves don’t always know where their ideas come from, so It’s a treat when we get to hear the genesis of a brilliant idea straight from the horse’s mouth. It’s often not what you would expect!

If you’ve watched Wicked and wondered where the idea for the friendship between Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) and Glinda (the Good Witch) came from, the author of the book has shared the precise moment it came to him.

The many iterations of Wicked

The hit movie Wicked is based on the 20-year-old hit stage musical, which is based on the novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West written by Gregory Maguire. It says a lot about how powerful the story is that it has succeeded in so many different mediums and continued to find new audiences that connect with it.

While the musical is a simplified version of the 1995 book, the basic storyline—the origins of the two witches from “The Wizard of Oz”—lies at the heart of both. In an interview with BBC, Maguire explained how Elphaba and Glinda’s friendship popped into his head.

The moment of inspiration that started it all

Maguire was visiting Beatrix Potter’s farm in Cumbria, England (Potter was an author and illustrator who created Peter Rabbit) and thinking about “The Wizard of Oz,” which he had loved as a child and thought could be an interesting basis for a story about evil.

“I thought ‘alright, what do we know about ‘The Wizard of Oz’ from our memories,’” he said. “We have the house falling on the witch. What do we know about that witch? All we know about that witch is that she has feet. So I began to think about Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West…

“There is one scene in the 1939 film where Billie Burke [Glinda] comes down looking all pink and fluffy, and Margaret Hamilton [The Wicked Witch] is all crawed and crabbed and she says something like, ‘I might have known you’d be behind this, Glinda!’ This was my memory, and I thought, now why is she using Glinda’s first name? They have known each other. Maybe they’ve known each other for a long time. Maybe they went to college together. And I fell down onto the ground in the Lake District laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together.”

Sometimes it’s the crazy idea that works the best

Maguire must have thought the idea of Glinda and The Wicked Witch attending college together was absurd at the time. What a kooky idea! But he pursued it nonetheless and, well, the rest is history.

In “Wicked,” Glinda and the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, meet as students at Shiz University, a school of wizardry. They get placed as roommates, loathe each other at first, but eventually become best friends. The story grows a lot more complicated from there (and the novel goes darker than the stage play), but it’s the character development of the two witches and their relationship with one another that force us to examine our ideas about good and evil.

Watch his explanation and inspiration here:

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Why the Wicked Witch specifically?

Maguire also shared with the Denver Center for Performing Arts what had inspired him to use the “Wizard of Oz” characters in the first place.

“I was living in London in the early 1990’s during the start of the Gulf War. I was interested to see how my own blood temperature chilled at reading a headline in the usually cautious British newspaper, the Times of London: ‘Sadaam Hussein: The New Hitler?’ I caught myself ready to have a fully formed political opinion about the Gulf War and the necessity of action against Sadaam Hussein on the basis of how that headline made me feel. The use of the word Hitler – what a word! What it evokes! When a few months later several young schoolboys kidnapped and killed a toddler, the British press paid much attention to the nature of the crime. I became interested in the nature of evil, and whether one really could be born bad,” he said.

“I considered briefly writing a novel about Hitler but discarded the notion due to my general discomfort with the reality of those times,” he continued. “But when I realized that nobody had ever written about the second most evil character in our collective American subconscious, the Wicked Witch of the West, I thought I had experienced a small moment of inspiration. Everybody in America knows who the Wicked Witch of the West is, but nobody really knows anything about her. There is more to her than meets the eye.”

What the story is really about

Authors and artists, and their ideas, help hold a mirror up to humanity for us to see and reflect on who we are, and “Wicked” is one of those stories that makes us take a hard look at what we’re seeing in that mirror. Thanks, Gregory Maguire, for launching us on a collective journey that not only entertains but has the potential to change how we see one another.

The second Wicked film, For Good, hit theaters in November 2025 and is now streaming on Peacock.

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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Photo credit: @the_wondermint/TikTok – A teacher laments how hard kindergarten has gotten and the pressure on young kids.

Education, Skills

‘Let them play’: Longtime teacher says today’s kindergarten standards are out of control

Recess is being replaced with more and more worksheets.

Heather Wake

Upworthy Staff

4/18/2026

It’s nothing new for parents to lament their kid’s ever-growing list of school requirements. From piles of homework to getting graded for school supplies, the pressures seem to be not only racking up over time, but spreading to younger and younger grades. And it’s not just parents who have noticed the shift.

In a video that continues to spark vital conversation, longtime kindergarten teacher Ms. Kelli, of the TikTok account @the_wondermint, reflected on how different it is for students at even the most introductory level: Kindergarten.

The “trickle-down” effect of academic pressure

We all know how intense the pressure is for high schoolers looking to get into college. Two or three decades ago, SAT tutoring and prep courses were a luxury for wealthy families. Now they’re viewed as essential. But what’s taking parents, and teachers, off guard is how the elevated standards are trickling down to little kids who are barely out of diapers.

In her viral message, Kelli begins, “So I just gotta ask, as a 20-year kindergarten teacher myself, remember when we went to kindergarten that we just had to be potty trained and not eat the glue?” Comparing that to the long list of requirements nowadays, the educator says she feels sorry for families going through it.

“My heart breaks when I see all these videos of what do you need to do to prepare your child for kindergarten, and things your child must know before going to kindergarten, and these lists of things that parents need to be working on.”

One teacher agreed in a recent Reddit thread: “When I first taught Kindergarten in Wisconsin in 2009 the standard was to count to thirty. By 2012, the standard had changed to one hundred.”

Another parent chimed in: “Our kindergarten has them count to 100. Know 40 sight words by the end of kindergarten. Begin teaching reading and phonics … they learned to write their names within the first two weeks and are expected to do that and the date on every assignment. Each week they make a letter book for a different letter but they expected them to go into kindergarten knowing all their letters. They have a math packet every week for take home. … I mean I love it, he’s learning a lot but he does get quite a bit of work. Two packets due a week. So we do a page a night from each so it’s done by Thursday night.”

(Remember, these kids are about five years old. They can barely eat spaghetti without drenching themselves in pasta sauce, and we’re expecting them to sit down and do worksheets!)

Another added, “My son’s school routinely takes away recess. They do it if they don’t get enough school work finished during the day, or if the class misbehaves too much, or one single child can get it taken away. It’s also at the end of the day, so the kids are slaving away learning for six hours before maybe getting a break.”

It’s not just the parents who are noticing, either. A study out of the University of Virginia in 2016 found that kindergarten standards and curriculums at the time were far more similar to first grade curriculums from the previous decade. And the standards have only gotten higher since.

Redefining what “success” looks like for a five-year-old

Kelli says she’s had enough. She argues that, “Human development hasn’t changed. What a five or six-year-old child is physically, mentally and developmentally able to do hasn’t changed, in all these years.”

Still, the standards have changed. And kids are paying the price.

So she encourages fellow teachers and parents to not force the educational aspect.

“The learning will come. The development will come, the ABCs, the one, two, threes, writing, all of it, it will come … Curriculum, it will happen. The learning, it will happen,” she says.

@the_wondermint
Little bit of a plea and PSA for the day… let them be kids! #teachersontiktok #teachertok #teachersoftiktok #iteachk #kindergarten #ilovekindergarten #iloveteaching #foryoupage #teacherforyoupage #fypage #teacherfyp #playbasedlearning #seethewonderkeepitfresh #handsonlearning #reggioemilia #letthemexplore #parentsontiktok #parentsoftiktok #kindergartenparents #kinderprep #backtoschool
♬ original sound – The Classrooms of Ms. Kelli

Let the kids be kids

Instead of placing more pressure, Kelli suggests a gentler, simpler approach.

“Let them play, let them socialize with each other. Let them learn to be away from their mommy and daddy and be sad for a little bit and be comforted. Let them find friendships that are gonna make them laugh so hard that their bellies ache and tell stories that go home. Let them create something that they never thought they could. Let them do an art project where they turn a box into a robot and they’re so excited to show their parents!”

Kelli’s video seemed to really resonate with parents and teachers alike, who have definitely felt like certain aspects of childhood have been sacrificed in the name of “productivity.” Especially when it comes to homework.

The comments couldn’t agree more

“Yes! My son struggled in Kindergarten last year and even had homework! I could not believe what all he had to know. Teacher said he had a hard time paying attention… yeah he is 5!” one mom shared.

“Finally someone said it,” added another. “The curriculum is insane for elementary school kiddos. They have absolutely lost their childhood.”

One person noted that “the kindergarten report card used to be things like skipping, walking on a balance beam, the hardest thing was counting to 100.”

As for whether or not a more academic-focused approach to kindergarten is, in fact, less beneficial to kids— a 2019 study in the American Educational Research Journal did find that it led to improvements, both academic and interpersonal, in the long run.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean we need to load them up with a ton of work for after school. Another study reported that elementary school students, on average, are assigned three times the recommended amount of homework.

This is why Kelli created a follow-up video sharing why she doesn’t assign homework to her own students.

@the_wondermint
Replying to @Drea_keevs Controversial but yet it shouldn’t be… 5 year olds should not be doing homework! Talk as a family, snuggle and read, enjoy their favorite sport activity, have a dance party! Their days are filled inside school, make the time outside of school good for their hearts and souls! tteachersontiktoktteachertoktteachersoftiktokiiteachkkkindergarteniilovekindergarteniiloveteachingfforyoupagetteacherforyoupageffypagetteacherfyppplaybasedlearningsseethewonderkeepitfreshhhandsonlearningrreggioemilialletthemexploreparentsontiktok #parentsoftiktok #parentingtips #homework #homeworkhelp
♬ original sound – The Classrooms of Ms. Kelli

“We are covering what we’re covering in the five or six hours with these little babies, and if we can’t cover that in that time, we’re definitely not gonna get the best out of them at 5, 6 o’clock at night when they’re tired and they should be enjoying time with their family,” she said.

She does, however, advocate trying to instill a “love of reading,” if you can count that as homework. But even then, that assignment looks more like snuggling in bed, cozying up with a book, and having their parents read it to them.

Point being: of course school is meant to help set up students for success. But if it robs them of their precious, formative, and oh-so-temporary childhood, then is it really worth it?

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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Photo credit: via Matthew Barra/Pexels – A cruise ship could be your home for a way lower price than you'd expect.

Culture, Pop Culture

Retired teachers in their 30s live on cruise ships full-time for a little over $10K a year

“It sounds mad, but the numbers made sense.”

Tod Perry

Upworthy Staff

4/18/2026

You know that feeling toward the end of a great vacation when you stop and think: I wish I could stay here forever. It might be an all-inclusive resort, a secluded beach, or a fun-filled cruise on the high seas that you just don’t want to leave. Of course, for most people, it’s a fantasy. You can’t just quit your job and live a permanent vacation. But what if you could?

Giving it all up and retiring to live on a cruise ship at 32 seems like a lifestyle choice only available to the ultra-wealthy. However, two financially savvy retired school teachers from Tennessee have managed to do just that, spending under $10,000 for the first eight months at sea.

Falling in love with cruises

Monica Brzoska, 32, and Jorell Conley, 36, met in 2015 while teaching in Memphis, Tennessee. The following year, they booked a week-long cruise to Mexico, Belize, and Grand Cayman. After that, they were hooked on cruising together.

Eight years later, in March 2023, they booked a week-long Caribbean cruise and had the time of their lives. When it was over, instead of returning home to Memphis, they had a wild idea: Why not continue to book consecutive cruises? So, they did just that.

Monica was inspired to start living the life she always wanted after her father fell ill and her mother told her: “Don’t wait for retirement. Follow your dreams.”

View this post on Instagram

How They Made the Numbers Work

The couple crunched the numbers and found that if they chose the cheapest cabins and used the deals and promotions they’d received from Carnival Cruises, they could book the first 8 months for just under $10,000.

That’s not per month. That’s the total, coming out to around $1250 per month. Not a bad deal whatsoever. Plus, the more cruises they book, the more perks and deals they get.

“It sounds mad, but the numbers made sense. Accommodation, food and entertainment would be included – we’d only need spending money,” Brzoska “And because we’d been on so many Carnival cruises, we’d earned access to some amazing offers.”

Hopping from ship to ship isn’t difficult for the couple because many disembark from the same ports. But they sometimes have to fly when they can’t walk to the next ocean liner.

Cruising toward retirement

The couple then quit their jobs, sold their possessions, and started a new life on the high seas. They rent out their 3-bedroom home in Memphis to maintain steady cash flow. The average 3-bedroom home in the area rents somewhere between $1200 to $1900 a month.

View this post on Instagram

Over the first year of their new life, the couple completed 36 consecutive cruises.

They have already visited countless destinations across the globe, but they can’t choose a favorite. “For a cultural experience, we loved Japan,” Brzoska told a Carnival Cruise director on Instagram. The couple also loved Greece for its “history” and Iceland because it was the “closest to being on Mars.”

More recently, they’ve spent time in Amsterdam, the UK, Germany, Belgium, and more. What an amazing adventure.

One of the most incredible benefits of living on a cruise ship is that so many things are taken care of for you. The couple never has to cook any meals, do any laundry, or drive. Every night, there is something to do, whether it’s checking out a comedy show or enjoying drinks and dancing in the nightclub. Plus, there are always new friends to meet on board with every new cruise.

Plus, on cruises, just about all the costs are covered, so you rarely have to open your wallet. It’s a stress-free, all-inclusive lifestyle. Brzoska says that when you remove the everyday stresses from life, it’s great for your marriage. “Without the daily stresses of life, we rarely argued, but always told each other if we needed space or more time together,” she said.

They are not the only ones

Brzoska and Conley were one of the first high-profile couples to get attention, followers, and media coverage for the permanent cruising lifestyle, but they’re definitely not the only ones. It’s an especially popular choice for retired adults and seniors, who find it cheaper and way more fun than living in a retirement community or nursing home. It’s also a great choice for people who can work remotely and flexibly, or who own their own digital-nomad-friendly businesses.

View this post on Instagram

The couple also makes sure to have one date night a week, during which they dress up and have a nice meal together.

The couple has been cruising full-time for more than two years, logging 106+ cruises and visiting over 45 countries as of this and counting. Absolutely unreal.

Most people may be unable to give it all up and live their lives hopping from ocean liner to ocean liner. But there’s a great lesson in the story of Brzoska and Conley: You never know how much time you have left, so don’t wait for retirement to live the life of your dreams.

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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Photo credit: @_queenoftheclassroom/TikTok – A rude commenter got a lesson from Ms. Allen.

Education, Skills

Someone criticized this teacher’s out-of-the-box lessons. Her comeback was an A+.

Never insult a teacher unless you plan on using proper grammar.

Annie Reneau

Upworthy Staff

4/18/2026

Being a teacher isn’t easy. Teaching middle school students is especially not easy. Teaching middle school students who spent several of their formative years going through a global pandemic in the age of smartphones, social media and a youth mental health crisis is downright heroic.

If you haven’t spent time in a middle school classroom lately, you may not fully grasp the intensity of it on every level, from the awkwardness to the body odor to the delightful hilarity that tweens bring to the table. When you connect with your students, it can be incredibly rewarding, and when you don’t…well, we all read “Lord of the Flies,” right?

Skilled teachers bring out the best in young people, and that can be done in many different ways. In fact, this new generation of students requires out-of-the-box thinking and new ideas to keep them engaged in the learning process.

Teacher Amy Allen makes middle school fun

For Amy Allen, it’s all about making her middle school classroom a fun, welcoming place to learn and by bonding with her students. For Allen, fun and welcoming comes before anything else.

“I love teaching middle schoolers because they are awkward, and I’m awkward, so we get along,” Allen tells Upworthy.

She plays games with students, gets rambunctious with them and creates opportunities for them to expend some of that intense pre-and-early-teen energy in healthy ways. For instance, she shared a video of a game of “grudgeball,” an active trivia game that makes reviewing for a quiz or test fun and competitive, and you can see how high-energy her classroom is:

@_queenoftheclassroom
If this looks like fun to you, pick up my grudgeball template (? in bio) #qotc #grudgeball #10outof10recommend @Amy Allen ☀️ @Amy Allen ☀️ @Amy Allen ☀️
♬ original sound – Amy Allen ☀️

“I think for teachers, we always want to create moments for our students that are beyond the standard reading, writing, memorizing, quiz, ‘traditional learning,’” Allen says. “Games are a great way to incorporate fun in the classroom.”

Allen clearly enjoyed the game as much as her students—”I love the chaos!” she says— and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Fun keeps teachers sane, too.

Allen shares tons of classroom and teacher content on her TikTok page, where she’s accrued 15,000 followers and more than a million likes. Most of them admire her as a dedicated educator.

Most of them.

Then a troll showed up in the comments

Recently, one person took issue with Allen’s silly and raucous classroom behavior and commented, “your a teacher act like it.” (Not my typo—that’s exactly what the person wrote, only with no period.)

Allen, never one to shy away from public criticism on her social media, addressed the comment in another video in the most perfect way possible—by acting exactly like a teacher.

Watch as she eviscerates the anonymous commenter’s poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

@_queenoftheclassroom
Replying to @كل الكلبات تريد مني Come see me if you have any further questions. #qotc #iteachmiddleschool #weDEFINITELYdonthavefuninhere @Amy Allen ☀️ @Amy Allen ☀️ @Amy Allen ☀️ #Inverted
♬ original sound – Amy Allen ☀️

There are two solid ways to handle a rude comment without making things worse—you can ignore it or you can craft a response that makes the person look like a fool without being cruel or rude yourself. Allen’s grammar lesson response was A+ work, right down to the “Come see me if you have any further questions” caption.

Teacher-mode, activated.

Free lesson: Don’t mess with Ms. Allen

In fact, the person apparently went back and deleted their comment after the comeback video went viral, which makes it all the more hilarious. Allen’s video currently has more than 4 million views on TikTok and over 18 million views on YouTube.

“What’s funny is I left my correction on the board accidentally, and the next day, students asked me what that was all about,” Allen says. “When I explained it, they thought it was cool because ‘why would anyone go after Ms. Allen’? At that point, the video had maybe 10,000 views. I never imagined the video would go viral.”

Two days later, as the video was creeping toward a million views, she upped the stakes. “Some of my students are my ultimate hype people, and they were tracking it harder than I was,” she says.

“I made a ‘deal’ with my fifth period if it reached 1 million during their class, they could sit wherever they wanted the entire week.

“During lunch, I checked, and it reached 1 million. So when they came back from recess, I announced it, and it was like I was a rockstar. They screamed and cheered for me. It was an incredible moment for me.”

The comments showed lots of love

Allen’s followers, and many more people beyond that, loved her response:

“You’re an amazing teacher. (Did I do it right???)”

“Well, I appreciate you acting like a teacher… love it…”

“I love this clap-back! Look at you “acting” like a teacher!”

The irony, of course, is that Allen was acting like a teacher in her grudgeball video—an engaged teacher with engaged students who are actively participating in the learning process. Just because it doesn’t look like serious study doesn’t mean it’s not learning, and for some kids, this kind of activity might be far more effective at helping them remember things they’ve learned (in this case, vocabulary words) than less energetic ways of reviewing.

Allen has her thumb on the pulse of her students and goes out of her way to meet them where they are. Last year, for instance, she created a “mental health day” for her students. “I could tell they were getting burnt out from all the state tests, regular homework, and personal life extracurricular activities that many of my students participate in,” she says. “We went to my school library for ‘fireside reading,’ solved a murder mystery, built blanket forts, watched the World Cup, colored, and completed sudokus. Is it part of the curriculum? No. Is it worth spending one class period doing something mentally rewarding for students? Absolutely.”

@_queenoftheclassroom
Up Next: We decide to form a band with our first single “Rub some dirt on my boots”. #staytuned #qotc #parentdiscipline #teacherhumor #CapCut
♬ 打字声 – 成都潜在人工智能科技有限公司

Why ‘fun’ in the classroom is serious business

Teaching middle school requires a lot of different skills, but perhaps the most important one is to connect with students, partly because it’s far easier to teach someone who actually wants to be in your classroom and partly because effective teaching is about so much more than just academics. A teacher might be the most caring, stable, trustworthy adult in some students’ lives. What looks like silly fun and games in a classroom can actually help students feel safe and welcomed and valued, knowing that a teacher cares enough to try to make learning as enjoyable as possible. Plus, shared laughter in a classroom helps build a community of engaged learners, which is exactly what a classroom should be.

Keep up the awesome work, Ms. Allen, both in the classroom and in the comment section.

You can follow Amy Allen on TikTok and YouTube.

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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