Dad got a lesson from his young daughter in wedding etiquette.
Some kids are natural born leaders, and one adorable flower girl is a prime example.
A video created by the Lomelino Family and shared by weddingz.in on Instagram shows a little girl in a fancy red dress talking to her dad about the wedding in which she's to be a flower girl. Clearly, she has done her homework and put a lot of thought into how her role is supposed to goβas well as anticipated where it might go awry.
For instance, she tells her dad he can't call her name when she's walking down the aisle. Obviously, Dad's got a reputation. And when he asks if he can call out, "Princess!" instead, she full-on womansplains weddings to him, complete with a classic patient-but-exasperated brushing bangs away from her face move.
For real, this kid will be running a company someday. Watch:
But that video is only a highlight reel. The original video shared by the Lomelino Family on YouTube in 2015 includes a bit more footage, including the little cherub telling her father he doesn't understand weddings. At all. Watch:
The comments sum up her precociousness perfectly:
"Baby girl is going to be a CEO. I know leadership skills when I see them!"
"Her saying 'Dad' with her hand mannerism around her face looks like she mimicking her mom while correcting her Dad! πππ This will never get old. Bless her heart!"
β'Dad, weβre professionals and we will be walking down the aisle doing professional things.'β
"I love her boardroom explaining hand gestures! πππ She is trying to sell her idea to dad, who lacks the veteran flower girl experience of this little cutie π€£π€£π€£ Her patience is humbling β€οΈβ€οΈβ€οΈπ€"
The little girl is now a high schooler, and unsurprisingly, she says she's "interested in business stuff." Get it, girl. You were clearly born for it.
Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist known for epic works such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina. His life experiencesβfrom witnessing war to spiritual questsβprofoundly influenced his writings and gave him profound insights into the human soul. His understanding of emotions, motivations and moral dilemmas has made his work stand the test of time, and it still resonates with people today.
βThe more intelligent a person is, the more he discovers kindness in others,β Tolstoy once wrote. βFor nothing enriches the world more than kindness. It makes mysterious things clear, difficult things easy, and dull things cheerful.β
Intelligent people are kind #intelligent #intelligence #kindness #smart #tolstoy #men #women
De Medeiros boiled down Tolstoyβs thoughts into a simple statement: βIntelligent people are unafraid to be kind.β He then took things a step further by noting that Tolstoy believed in the power of emotional intelligence. "To have emotional intelligence is to see the good in other people, that is what Tolstoy meant, that to be intelligent is to be kind," he added.
It seems that, according to de Medeiros, Tolstoy understood that intelligent people are kind and perceptive of the kindness in others. The intelligent person is conscious of the kindness within themselves and in the world around them.
In a 2024 opinion piece for Inc., author and speaker Jeff Hayden cites organizational psychologist Adam Grant, who says, "Generosity isn't just a sign of virtue. It's also a mark of intelligence. Data: people with high IQs have more unselfish values, give more to charity, and negotiate better deals for others. They prioritize the long-term collective good over short-term self-interest. It's smarter to be a giver than a taker."
Hayden adds on to this statement, saying, "...You can also be smart enough to be generous, thoughtful, and kind. You can be smart enough to build people up instead of tearing them down. You can be smart enough to give before you receive (or better yet, with no expectation of reciprocation.) You can be smart enough to shift the credit from yourself to others."
Kids showing kindness through sharing. Canva Photos
In other words, these findings certainly line up with what Tolstoy's take on the correlation between kindness and intelligence.
Through Tolstoy's musings, de Medeiros (and Hayden and Grant) makes a point that is often overlooked when people talk about intelligence: truly smart people are as in touch with their hearts as they are with their minds.
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
A Texas UPS driver has a strong opinion on stay-at-home moms.
J.R. Minton, a 33-year-old UPS driver from the Dallas, Texas, area, recently ruffled some feathers with a viral TikTok video titled βSAHMs Listen up!β that begins with him asking, βI mean, how entitled could you be?β At first, Minton appears to fail to appreciate the enormous amount of emotional, mental, and physical labor that stay-at-home moms provide.
βI truly cannot imagine the amount of arrogance you must have to sit there and complain when you are so privileged to have a person who is willing to provide such a carefree life for you,β Minton continues. βLetβs get real! What do you do all day? Your spouse is taking care of everything so you can take care of one thing. How complicated could it be: all you do is go to work?β
At this point, legions of stay-at-home mothers and those who love them considered trucking themselves to Dallas to find this unappreciative UPS driver. However, it was soon apparent that Minton was referring to himself.
Grow tf upβYou should be doing more. #sahm #sahmlife #momlife #mom #momsoftiktok #sahmsoftiktok #sahmtok #momtok
βFor 10 hours a day, you get to live the life of a single, childless, carefree man because your wife was willing to take the financial risk of allowing you to be successful in your career while she takes care of everything else,β he continues. βShe provides childcare services, home cleaning services, medical services, food services, scheduling services, and a list that goes on and on. And you provide... a paycheck? And you have the nerve to call yourself the provider! What is it going to take for you to realize that, bro, everything you have in your life is because of a stay-at-home mom.β
The commenters on the video breathed sighs of relief and then praised Minton, a father of 4, for publicly appreciating his wifeβs work.
A woman breathing a sigh of relief. via Canva/Photos
"My sleeves were rolled up, earrings were off, hair tied up.... I was so ready...." one commenter joked. "I thought I landed in enemy territory for a min..." another added. "You have just made me realize after all these years that *I* am the freaking provider and that feels amazing,β a stay-at-home mother wrote.
People appreciate Mintonβs post because he praised stay-at-home mothers and placed his wifeβs work above his, which he characterized as merely bringing home a paycheck. Minton has one job, delivering packages, but as he noted, his wife is an expert in over five different professions. In a world where stay-at-home moms are fighting to be seen as equals to their working spouses, Minton places them on a pedestal and owes his βcarefree lifeβ to them.
"Married life, with children, is bound to be chaotic," Minton told Upworthy. "Itβs bound to have its ups and downs; Itβs made me question myself a thousand times. However, the marriage my wife and I share has given me the space to find peace."
Minton may be sharing an opinion we don't hear often enough, but he doesn't think he's the only one who thinks that way. "The last thing I am is rare or unique. Thereβs nothing special about the way that I feel or the things that I say. I have the same thoughts, feelings, frustrations and problems that any other husband or father might be struggling with," he told Upworthy. "The only difference that might be apparent is how I choose to react to the same situations any other man might encounter."
This post isnβt the first time Minton has pulled the bait and switch on his followers. Last year, he made a video where he appeared to take pride in the fact that he never βhelpsβ his wife with chores.
The twist in this video was that he doesnβt βhelpβ his wife with chores because they are also his responsibility. "Because I do what I am supposed to do as a father and a husband. I cook. I clean. I do the laundry. I take care of the kids. I can't help my wife do those things because they are my job, too,β he reveals.
He then urged men to change their perspectives on how they view stay-at-home moms. βChange the way you speak, change the way you think, and grow the f*** up and be a man," he added.
Minton is an equal partner to his wife because he wants to treat his wife and family differently from how he was raised. βPretty much everything about my parenting style is in spite of what I saw when I was growing up,β he told Today.com. It's wonderful to see someone like Minton breaking the generational cycles. What makes it even better is that he wants to teach others to do the same.
Have you ever looked back at your parentsβ high school yearbook and thought that all the 11th graders looked like they were in their early 30s? Whether they were in school in the β60s and the kids had horn-rimmed glasses or the β80s with feathered hair, they looked at least a decade older than today's high school kids. One wonders if in 30 years, kids look at a yearbook from 2025 and see boys with broccoli cuts and girls with nose rings and they think, βWhat are they, 35?β
The folks at Bright Side did a deep dive into the phenomenon and found a few reasons why people looked so much older in the past than they do now. Itβs a mix of how our minds perceive older fashion and why people age more gracefully in modern times.
Why did people look older in the past?
βSpecialists have looked into this phenomenon, and it does have some scientific facts to back it up,β the narrator states. βIt's not necessarily that our ancestors looked older; it's more that we appear to look younger. And younger as generations go by, that's because over time humans have improved the way they live their lives in the us alone over the last 200 years.β
A big reason people looked a lot older when photography became common in the late 1800s is that it happened at a time when we were making tremendous advances in public health. The 1880s to the 1920s were a time of rapid advancement, when we began to understand infectious diseases and how they spread. βWe gained access after safer types of foods, and we understand the importance of clean water. Our individual lifestyle choices can impact the way we look,β the video says.
The way we work has also drastically changed how people look. Working in an office for eight hours a day in air conditioning will keep you a lot younger-looking than working all day as a Victorian chimney sweep. Plus, for people who work outside, sunscreen has made it much easier to protect our skin and decrease wrinkles.
Letβs not forget the importance of a straight, white smile. Advances in dental care also help make people look younger.
Why do people wearing styles from the past appear older?
Finally, thereβs the clothes issue, and, yes, this does have a big impact on how we view the age of people from the past. βOur brains are wired to associate old trends with being old,β the video says. βFor example, your grandpa might still have the shirt he wore in that 1970s picture, and it's because of that shirt that you retroactively associate that trend with being old, despite the fact that your granddad does look younger in the picture than he looks today. β
In the end, the fact that people look a lot younger today than they did in the past is a testament to how the quality of life has drastically improved since cameras were first invented. However, that doesnβt mean that fashion has improved at all. You have to admit that your dad with that fly butterfly collar in his 1977 graduation photo looks better than that multi-colored, Machine Gun Kelly-style hoodie you see guys wearing in high schools today.
Namwila Mulwanda and her partner Zephi practice gentle parenting.
There are so many conflicting ideas about building self-confidence in children. Is there a right way? Could praise be harmful? Should everyone receive a gold star? As with many things in life, sometimes the best solution is the simplest oneβhiding in plain sight, or just out of it.
Namwila Mulwanda and her partner Zephi practice βgentle-parentingβ with their daughter, Nhyara. Shared in a video on Instagram, one of their techniques is talking about Nhyara when she's within earshot but out of sight. These aren't your typical behind-closed-doors parent conversationsβno venting about daily frustrations or sharing complaints they'd never say to her face. Instead, they create intentional moments of celebration, offering genuine praise and heartfelt affirmation.
In a viral Instagram post that's garnered over one million likes, Mulwanda writes, βPOV: You talk behind your child's back so they can hear you.β Self-described as a βpassionate mother, content creator, and small business owner,β Mulwanda naturally overflows with ideas: she writes a Substack, She Who Blooms, which is about βblooming in our own time, in our own way.β She also runs Rooted, a shop where she βcarefully curates products that embody the essence of growth, empowerment, and staying rooted in one's true self.β
In the video, Mulwanda and her partner sit in a quiet corner, chatting about their daughter Nhyara while occasionally peeking around to see if she's listeningβwhich she is. With her within earshot but not directly part of the conversation, they discuss their daughter:
βI'm just so proud of her and the things she does,β her mom starts.
βShe works on her reading, like that difficult word that she took the time to really sound out,β adds her dad. They go on to applaud her independence (βShe's always telling me, 'Daddy, I want to brush my teeth on my own,'β says Zephi), before concluding that she's amazing.
βShe's amazing,β says Mulwanda. βSo, so, so amazing,β Zephi responds.
People in the comments were obviously here for it. Parents shared their own versions of this technique, including one who wrote, βAs a solo mom, I pretend to make phone calls to a family member and do this.β
Another parent shared a powerful example:
βMy son used to be scared of climbing down the stairs. So, my husband said loudly, 'He's very brave! He has shown a lot of courage lately.' The next day, when we tried carrying him down the stairs, he said, 'Nope, I have a lot of courage in me.'β
Others reflected on their own childhoods. One commenter wrote, βNo exaggeration, I'd be an entirely different person had my parents been like this with me.β
βStop, I was just thinking last night, 'When I have kids, I'm going to have loud conversations with my future husband about how much I love our children and how proud I am of them,'β another enthusiastically shared.
Children believe that conversations between adults are more βauthenticβ and honest.Photo credit: Canva
Research indicates that indirect praise has a stronger psychological impact than direct praise, particularly in young children.
βThis is such a powerful way of reinforcing positive behavior,β explains parenting influencer Cara Nicole, who also went viral for her unique approach to parenting. βThere's something special about overhearing others talk about youβyou know they're being genuine because they're not saying it directly to you.β
This effectiveness stems from children's innate understanding that conversations between adults tend to be more honest than parent-child interactions. From an early age, children recognize that direct conversations with parents often have an intentional, behavior-shaping purpose. In contrast, overheard praise feels authentic and spontaneous, rather than an attempt to influence the child's self-image.
These techniques work best when praise focuses on effort and process rather than innate qualities. Take Nhyara's dad's comment: βShe works on her reading, like that difficult word that she took the time to really sound out.β
Yet, it's crucial to keep praise realistic and measured. Avoid overzealous claims about future achievements, like acing every spelling test for the rest of her life. Children have keen intuition; if they sense insincerity, the strategy can backfire, damaging their trust in parents. Similarly, over-inflated praiseβlike declaring βincredibleβ performance for average effortβcan burden children with unrealistic expectations.
Keep it simple. A casual remark like, βI noticed how carefully Maya put away her toys without being asked. That was so nice. It really helped keep the house clean.β
The viral response to Mulwanda's video demonstrates the power of gentle parenting combined with thoughtful, specific praise. It's heartening to see modern parents sharing their diverse approaches to showing their children love. For many commenters who didn't experience this kind of upbringing, these conversations offer a path to healing. As Mulwanda eloquently states in her pinned comment:
βTo those of you who only heard negative as a child, you were never the problem. You were a child, and you didnβt deserve the experience you had. Your presence on this earth is a blessing, and the fact that you show up every single day is proof of just how amazing you are. You are brave, you are beautiful (you too, boys), and you deserve the world and more. If any of you feel emotions rising up, close your eyes, hug your inner child, and remind them that youβre there.β - Namwila Mulwanda
In many ways, millennials have had the short end of the stick when it comes to generational luck. They grew up during the Great Recession, and by the time they were old enough to make it on their own, they had to deal with an incredible increase in the cost of living. For many millennials, the American dream seems to be fading away. Itβs no wonder so many say they are exhausted.
Life can be even harder for millennial parents who need all the support they can get trying to raise a family at such a difficult time. The unfortunate reality for many is that their baby boomer parents, or their kidsβ grandma and grandpa, aren't around to help. A big reason why baby boomers arenβt around for the grandkids is that they have more money than previous generations and spend a lot of time on vacation or pursuing their hobbies. For many, it's no shock that the cohort dubbed the "Me Generation" in the '70s has taken that ethos into their golden years.
Even though many boomer grandparents arenβt there for their children and grandchildren, many like to pretend they are by sharing photos of their grandkids at events they didnβt even attend on Facebook. Popular millennial TikToker @MotherPhyillis, who has a lot to say about absent boomer grandparents, took a shot at her parents in a video in which she mocked their misleading Facebook posts.
Thatβs why I donβt post anymore When the absent grandparent reposts the pictures acting like they know whatβs going on #foryoupage #momlife #mom #relatable #fypγ· #millennial #fypage #generations #funny
In the video, Phyllis pretends she's on the phone with her mother, describing the photos she took of her kids, only to realize she has already posted them on Facebook. The video touched a nerve with many millennial mothers who have had the same experience. βI stopped posting altogether. For that reason,β one wrote. βMy mom tags herself like she was there,β another added. βI blocked my mother-in-law because she would do the same thing and I canβt stand when she would act like she was seeing my son all the time when itβs only on his birthday and some holidays,β wrote another.
βI stopped posting. My mother posts things on her FB about how she misses her grandkids but she doesnβt even call them on their birthdays,β another frustrated mom wrote. βMy monster in law doesnβt get to see anything I post because I have the privacy settings on. She thinks I never post pictures,β one more added.
The topic of absentee boomer grandparents must be on many millennials' minds because one of Phyllis' videos, where she explains why her generation is βexhausted,β received over nine million views.
These new age grandparents got it made. I love my kids to death, but a night out with my husband with out finding a babysitter would be nice π #fyp #fypγ·#mom #momlife #sahm #truth #viral #love @laneige_us
βIf our parents were exhausted or just needed a weekend off, weekend away, call grandma. We go stay the night at our grandparents for the weekend, and we had a blast. It was so fun. They wanted to spend time with us. That's the difference. They wanted to,β Phyllis said. βThese new age grandparents, where they at? And don't even get me started on, βOh, times have changed. Things are expensive.β You can still hang out with your current grandkids.β
Obviously, itβs wrong to paint all boomer grandparents with the same brush. However, the ones who aren't there for their grandkids are a popular topic on social media. Talking about their absence may not make any grandparents wake up and help out, but at least it can help the millennials who have to raise their kids all by themselves feel less alone.
An intelligent man's thought process.
Kids showing kindness through sharing. 
A woman breathing a sigh of relief. via 
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A "girl gang" in 1976. via 
GIrls in class in the 1960s.via 
Children believe that conversations between adults are more βauthenticβ and honest.
An older woman looking at a laptop.via
A young mom who's exhausted.via