+
Heroes

If you look at her hands, you'll see her struggles. Literally.

Who knew a bucket of water could be so hard? They do.

True
Stella Artois

Aissa lives in Sahel, a region south of the Sahara Desert, in Niger.

Sahel is notorious for its lack of water.


Near Torombi Village, where Aissa lives, there is a very deep well.


That's where the village women get their water by hauling it up in buckets.

Pulling up buckets of water is harder work than you'd imagine.

Just ask the women about their hands.

"When you get used to drawing water, you don't feel the pain any more. The first time you draw water, the skin pulls off and your hands bleed, but you continue to draw water." — Aissa

But worse than having bleeding and blistering hands? Falling into the well, which is exactly what happened to Aissa — and her daughter.

Aissa yelled for others to come save her daughter:

"Just save my child! I know that I will surely die. Let my child go back home and may God bless her."

Ultimately, they were OK.

But the danger that comes just from trying to get water remains.

Watch below to see Aissa tell her story, as well as the story of another village, Sourountouna, that has found a way to battle the scarcity.

While the campaign the video refers to began in September 2014, the message is still HUGELY relevant. There are still so many people who risk their lives just to get drinking water.

Joy

Sorry, Labradors. After 31 years, America has a new favorite dog.

The American Kennel Club has crowned a new favorite.

via Pixabay

A sad-looking Labrador Retriever

The sweet-faced, loveable Labrador Retriever is no longer America’s favorite dog breed. The breed best known for having a heart of gold has been replaced by the smaller, more urban-friendly French Bulldog.

According to the American Kennel Club, for the past 31 years, the Labrador Retriever was America’s favorite dog, but it was eclipsed in 2022 by the Frenchie. The rankings are based on nearly 716,500 dogs newly registered in 2022, of which about 1 in 7 were Frenchies. Around 108,000 French Bulldogs were recorded in the U.S. in 2022, surpassing Labrador Retrievers by over 21,000.

Keep ReadingShow less

PeacefulBarb's "7 Things Adult Children May Need to Hear"

Just like there are no hard-set rules for raising children, there is no perfect guidebook on how to be a supportive parent to an older child. As parents watch their kids grow and start their own families, it can be hard for them to navigate the new role they have in their lives.

That’s why Barb Schmidt, who goes by PeacefulBarb on TikTok, shared her list of the ‘7 Things Adult Children May Need to Hear’ from their parents. It’s a great starting point for parents who aren’t sure what their older children need.

Schmidt is an international best-selling author, sought-after motivational speaker, mindset coach and mindfulness teacher.

Here’s her list:

Keep ReadingShow less

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS.

On May 25, the show’s Instagram page posted a touching video of an off-the-cuff moment between Barrymore and a fan during a taping of her show. In the clip, Barrymore realizes that someone in the audience is crying. So, instead of ignoring the fan, she jumps to action to see what is the matter.

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

Nurse explains how babies breathe in utero and the internet is amazed

A new mom asked how babies practice breathing, and Nurse Jen delivered an answer that's blowing people's minds.

Nurse explains how babies breathe in utero.

There are so many questions out there that we don't realize we want to know the answers to until someone else asks. Once the question is in the vicinity of our ear holes, suddenly we're like, "Oh, yeah. How does that work?" That's pretty much how this TikTok video went for a lot of viewers, myself included.

I have had four (yes, four) children exit my body, and it never dawned on me to ask further than the initial question of how babies breathe in there. It's a question that most new moms either don't think to ask or ask only once and get a similar answer to the one I received, which is that they take in oxygen via their umbilical cord connected to the placenta, so they don't need to breathe in the traditional way we think of until after birth.

But when a new mom asked the people of the internet how her unborn baby was able to practice breathing without drowning, Jen Hamilton, an OB nurse, decided to answer in a video.

Keep ReadingShow less

A mother with a megaphone goes on strike.

Every parent knows that sometimes their kids, especially teenagers, can say things in the heat of the moment they don’t really mean. But the mother at the center of this story took her teenage son’s outburst seriously and turned it into an opportunity to teach him a lesson. The question is, did she go too far to make a point?

A 35-year-old mom wanted to learn if she had been too hard on her 14-year-old son, so she shared her story on Reddit’s AITA subforum (we've abbreviated the forum's name to avoid printing foul language). AITA is where people vote on whether the poster was right or wrong in how they handled a situation.

“Lately, he has been acting out a little at home and school, so I decided to sit him down to try and figure out what was happening,” the mother wrote in a post that received over 800 comments. She said that the boy had been cursing out his parents as well as his teacher.

Keep ReadingShow less

Dad gives a how-to on "gentle parenting with malicious intent."

By now, everyone has heard of gentle parenting. Even if you're not quite sure what it is, you've heard the phrase. Parents that use this style of parenting set boundaries with their children but with thorough explanations and a focus on healthy emotional development. One dad decided to spin the gentle parenting trend by implementing "gentle parenting with malicious intent" for his older children.

You may be wondering how one gentle parents with malicious intent. No worries, the dad uploaded a now-viral clip to TikTok, where it has over 4 million views, to explain. In the clip, "Ginger Jack" has the camera on himself as he talks to his kids about completing their chores without attitudes…and that's where the twist comes in.

"New rule. Whenever one of you starts giving me attitude, I'm going to start hitting on mom," the dad says before speaking to his partner. "Hey there. sugar. How you doing, baby girl? How do you feel about another child? I could rub your ankles real good." He then makes what can only be described as an attempt at a sexy cat noise.

Keep ReadingShow less