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It's art made just for the pope's visit to Philly. But for the artists and the city, it's much more.

How a work of art is encouraging an entire community to discover what unites them.

Pope Francis is making his first trip to the U.S. this month, with stops in Washington, D.C., New York, and Philadelphia.

Pope Francis has a packed schedule for his Sept. 22-27 visit. In addition to leading four Masses, the pontiff will stop at the White House, tour the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, visit a Pennsylvania prison, attend the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, and undoubtedly take part in thousands of selfies.

Selfies! Photo by Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images.

Millions are expected to greet him, so some of Philadelphia's best artists have been working nonstop for his arrival.

Meg Saligman, Dan Ostrov, and Stephanie Cole have been working overtime on their piece, "Knot Grotto," a 20-by-13-foot wooden sculpture built exclusively for Pope Francis' visit to the City of Brotherly Love.

"Knot Grotto" is staged outside the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. Photo by Stephanie Cole and Dan Ostrov.

Saligman was commissioned by Sister Mary Scullion and the Mercy and Justice Initiative, an arm of Project HOME, one of the most successful outreach programs for people experiencing homelessness. As a woman of faith and Philadelphia luminary, Scullion hopes this papal visit will bring the community together.

"We're hoping that people are moved to acknowledge a higher power and to also acknowledge the power within ourselves to act," Scullion told the New York Times.

"Knot Grotto" was inspired by one of Pope Francis' favorite paintings, "Mary Untier of Knots."

The Johann Georg Schmidtner painting depicts Mary, surrounded by angels, untying knots to form a long strip.

Photo by Alejandro Pagni/AFP/Getty Images.

The knots symbolize struggles or dilemmas with unclear solutions. The devotional to the Holy Mother became one of Pope Francis' favorites after he completed his doctoral studies in Germany, where the prayer is particularly common.

As Saligman told ABC6 of their inspiration, "Our contemporary interpretation of this tradition is the knotted grotto of Mary clearing pathways for people to help them with their struggle."

Photo by Stephanie Cole and Dan Ostrov.

Many hands make light work, and many more hands are bringing "Knot Grotto" to life.

For the past six weeks, a full team of artists, assistants, and architectural consultants have been hard at work constructing the piece. From computer sketches, bracing, sanding, and everything in between, getting the grotto off the ground was truly a team effort.

It takes a team to make a grotto. Photo by Stephanie Cole and Dan Ostrov.

Saligman brought Ostrov and Cole (partners in art and in life) to lead the design and construction of the larger-than-life installation.

Constructed of ash and mahogany pieces made pliable in a steam chamber, the grotto is large enough for visitors to walk inside, where they'll be surrounded by dynamic curves and light.

"We've had to resort to some crazy measures to make this happen, but by God we're gonna do it," Cole told Upworthy.

Ostrov adds finishing touches to the top of "Knot Grotto." Photo by Stephanie Cole and Dan Ostrov.

More than beautiful, the piece is meant to unite people through their common struggles.

Visitors to the sculpture write down their challenges, wishes, hopes, and prayers, then tie them onto the grotto. All summer long, Saligman has been collecting knots by mail and at pop-up events in Philadelphia.

Tens of thousands have already been submitted, and more are expected to arrive ahead of Pope Francis' Mass in Philadelphia on Sept. 26.

Come join us outside of the Free Library! #weaving #Philadelphia #FrancisFund #PopeFrancis #MercyandJustice #ProjectHome #untietheknots
A photo posted by Meg Saligman (@megamural) on

The wishes, prayers, and struggles are diverse. Some are prayers for help with addiction; others struggle with student loans, or simply pray to be good parents.

"The fabric [knots] will come up through the middle ... so it will almost be like the struggles are ascending to heaven," Ostrov told Upworthy.

Photo by Stephanie Cole and Dan Ostrov.

Leaving prayers in the knotted grotto is just one part of Project HOME's three-part mission for the papal visit. The Mercy and Justice initiative is also encouraging visitors to contribute to The Francis Fund, a group of faith-based and non-religious organizations assisting people experiencing poverty and homelessness in the Philadelphia area, and to reach out to their elected officials to advocate legislation that encourages mercy and justice.

With nearly 2 million people descending on the city, the installation will serve as a peaceful place for fellowship.

With throngs of pilgrims and spectators expected in Philadelphia, Ostov hopes the grotto, on display now outside the The Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul — the church where Pope Francis is leading Mass — will serve as a sanctuary in the crowded scene.

The Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, where Pope Francis will lead Mass. Photo by Terry Robinson/Flickr (cropped).

"I'm kind of imagining this quiet area within this mass of people, and people would start reading the struggles ... and they have this moment of kinship."

Cole agreed, adding, "I think the general hope is that this will really bring more synergy to the city."

No matter what they're praying for or struggling with, Scullion hopes the papal visit will serve to unite people of all faiths and walks of life. As she told the New York Times, "We need God's grace to untie the knots, but we also need each other."

Every frame a picture.... Come add your knot to the grotto today through September 28th @megamural @mercy_justice @artprogram_projecthome #mercyandjustice #philadelphia #popefrancisph #instasculpture #instaart #woodart #woodworking #woodsculpture #sculpture
A photo posted by Daniel Ostrov & Stephanie Cole (@steamchamber) on

The "Knot Grotto" officially opens Thursday, Sept. 3 and will remain on display outside the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul until Monday, Sept. 28.

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Pets

The most inspiring pet stories of 2024

Leading pet brand Nulo knows every cat and dog has the power to be incredible.

via Keswick Mountain Rescue Team/Instagram, Cat Protection/Youtube

Incredible pets deserve incredible food.

2024 was a year filled with heartwarming stories that reminded us of the incredible bond between humans and their furry companions. From acts of bravery to heartwarming gestures, these pets made a huge impact on the lives of their owners… and the lives of many, many more.

It’s stories like these that continue to inspire leading pet nutrition brand Nulo, which is committed to helping pets live their best lives with functional, delicious and nutritious food. Through their innovative and intentional formulas, Nulo fuels incredible cats and dogs just like the ones below each and every day.

Enjoy some stories below of 2024’s goodest boys and girls — courageous dogs, trauma-informed kitties and much, much more —that really show the unwavering love and loyalty animals bring into our lives. Their inspiring actions fuel incredible.

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When a 71-year-old man went unconscious and collapsed during a steep hike, his golden retriever and a black labrador instinctively broke up into a rescue team — the smart and resourceful labrador going off to look for help, and the loyal goldie staying by its owner's side. Sometimes it’s smart to have two of “man’s best friends.”

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Marley, a seven-year-old, black and white feline known for his "incredible gift of empathy” won Cat Protection's National Cat of the Year 2024 for the way he comforts women who have been enslaved, exploited and trafficked and staying at the Caritas Bakhita Safe House in London. He’s known to often leave a reassuring paw on guests’ legs to “let them know they’re not alone,” a gesture often called “the first kindness they’ve experienced in years.”

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

In early 2024, Kobe, a four-year-old husky with an extraordinary sense of smell, began digging obsessively in the yard. At first the pooch’s owner, Chanell Bell, thought this was just typical behavior, but soon discovered that Kobe had indeed detected a dangerously large cloud of natural gas that would have not only been seriously life-threatening to her, but the entire neighborhood. It’s like they say, “the nose knows.”

Eight-year-old golden retriever Roger, may have failed his drug-sniffing training in Taiwan, but it turns out he has a knack for rescue operations during natural disasters. After a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck, Roger dug through the rubble of a collapsed building to locate the body of one of the 13 people killed in the quake, offering closure to a grieving family. This earned him the nickname of “the pride of Taiwan” on social media.

Dogs don’t only save humans — sometimes they rescue other animals as well.

When folks scrolling through the X account called “Animals Dying” saw a video of a creature swimming through murky water with a deer fawn in its jaws, they probably assumed it was an alligator enjoying its latest meal. But to everyone’s surprise and delight, it was actually a Labrador Retriever making sure the sweet little fawn didn’t drown.

Once a stray, 12-year-old Cilla found her home at Outwoods Primary School in Warwickshire, England, where she calms anxious students, inspires a community of cat lovers on X, and has even used her social media celebrity to help raise £5,000 to restock the school library — a place she loves to lounge in.

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In July, Bloodhound puppy and K-9 unit member Remi used his powerful nose to help an autistic and non-verbal boy who had gotten lost find his way back home. Deputy B. Belk, Remi’s partner, used a piece of sterile gauze to collect the scent from the boy’s forearms and the back of his neck and had Remi “reverse” track backwards for about half a mile to locate the child’s home in a nearby neighborhood.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

When a beautiful pooch named Gita saw her 84-year-old owner fall and hurt his leg, she ran down to the main road, and refused to move until someone stopped to help. Eventually she was seen by a man named Deputy Wright, who tried to get Gita into his patrol car, but the dog wouldn’t budge. When Gita did finally bolt off, Wright followed her down to where the man had been stranded, and was able to help him. Without her protection, who knows if the man would have been found in time? “The loyalty and heroism of our furry friends never cease to amaze us,” Wright would end up writing on Facebook.

If there’s an incredible furry friend in your own life, nothing says “thank you” quite like a nourishing meal. Check out Nulo for a variety of recipes sure to be loved by your beloved pet.

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Pop Culture

An OnlyFans star had sex with 101 men in a single day and shared how it affected her mental health

This is why more young people are saying "No Thanks" to casual hookups.

lillyphillipstokk/TikTok & Josh Pieters/YouTube

In the absence of proper sex education in many parts of the country, more and more people are turning to online pornography to learn how things work. In that case, people will be very interested to hear about the curious case of Lily Phillips. The 23-year-old OnlyFans star recently took on an ambitious, if a little gross, challenge: She was going to sleep with 100 men in just 24 hours.

Lily spent months "training" for the stunt, and on the big day, invited a documentary filmmaker along to record what was sure to be a wild journey. The guys were recruited through Lily's large fanbase and flew in to meet her from all over the world. During the stunt, they would take turns coming into the room where they would make small talk, hang their clothes up, and have about 2-3 minutes each with Lily.

One guy brought a single rose.

The most interesting part of filmmaker Josh Pieter's documentary, however, is the aftermath. Immediately afterwards, Lily told the film crew she was feeling physically fine. But anyone watching can clearly see that she is physically and, more importantly, emotionally exhausted.

"It's not for the weak girls, if I'm honest. It was hard, I don't know if I'd recommend it." She then gets emotional trying to describe the intensity of the experiment and has to walk off camera to collect herself.


Lily Phillips crying and collecting herself while being interviewed by documentary crewJosh Pieters/YouTube

Lily eventually opened up and said the thing that got to her was the awkwardness of some of the interactions, how uncomfortable it was at times and feeling pressure to show the guys "a good time," worrying that some of them didn't like her or were disappointed in the experience, or in her. Some of the men guilted her for not spending more time with them or not fulfilling certain expectations they had going in.

I know, I know. It's hard to feel too bad for her knowing she came up with this idea on her own to grow her business and willingly participated. But hearing her reflect on the aftermath is a surprisingly human and affecting moment. Most non-adult stars will, obviously, never attempt such a stunt. But the emotions Lily was feeling at the end of the day still seem awfully relatable to us regular human-beings.

Even the documentary director was surprised by Lily's reaction. "I certainly didn't expect to see Lily so upset at the end of it all," Josh Pieters said. "I thought perhaps in years to come she might look back on this day in sadness, but not so instantly afterwards."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Casual sex has its upsides for some people, but it's emotionally fraught for all parties and has been linked to negative mental health outcomes.

It might be a stretch to call an OnlyFans content stunt "casual sex," but there's a lot we can learn by the end of Lily and Josh's documentary. VerywellMind writes that casual hookups can damage your health in many different ways. There's a risk of disappointment, regret, damaged self-esteem, depression, embarrassment, and more.

Even a so-called professional can't escape some of these emotions! So us normies have to be really careful. It's not that hookups are inherently bad, but a lot of people jump into them without setting expectations, communicating well, and properly thinking through how they're going to feel at the end.

This is a big reason younger generations like Gen Z have been moving away from the casual dating and hooking up culture previous generations were big on.

Global Dating Insights writes that young people report "feeling burnt out, anxious, and disconnected after engaging in short-term flings or casual hookups" and are more likely to seek platonic or long-term romantic relationships — though there are other factors involved in this shift, as well.

A 28-year-old woman told the LA Times, "“[Not having sex] helps me relax,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t care about how I look or how I come off to other people. But I have a little extra help caring less about it, because I don’t have to worry about attracting specific kinds of people for specific things.”

A 21-year-old wrote in to Men's Health curious why everyone he met seemed to only want a romantic relationship or be "demisexual," which means they only feel attraction to someone after forming a strong emotional connection.

It's fascinating to see the pendulum start to swing in the opposite direction as become more aware of some of the mental-health downsides to a practice that has been commonplace for decades.

At the end of the day, feelings aside, the stunt was a huge success for Lily in terms of exposure and content. So much so that she quickly announced a new plan to break the world record for sexual partners in a 24 hour span by trying to reach 1,000 — the current record, for anyone wondering, is 919 set in 2004.

Good luck, we think?

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Joy

Couple tracks down the women who crashed their wedding and they end up becoming friends

They ate the 'really good guac' and left photos as evidence.

@1dsteeno/TikTok

They weren't even mad about it.

Back in October, Danny Steeno and his fiancé Daisy got married. However, when they got their photos back months later, they noticed two wedding guests were women neither of them had ever met before. Danny and Daisy could have been peeved to discover they had a couple of wedding crashers, but instead found it “hilarious” and set off on a mission to find out who these mysterious women were.

Enlisting TikTok for help, the couple showed a picture of the two gals smiling in nice dresses with drinks in hand and said "If you know them, let us know."

@1dsteeno Find our wedding crashers!! #wedding #funnyvideo #help ♬ original sound - Danny Steeno

In mere hours, the video went viral, and made its way to Valerie and Gracelyn, our two loveable culprits. Once Valerie and Gracelyn came clean, there was clearly only one thing for Danny and Daisy to do—arrange a Zoom call.

Thanks to some shared clips of that conversation, we now know what inspired this bout of mischief in the first place.

"We had no plans, so we said, ‘Why don’t we try wedding crashing?' " Gracelyn told the now husband and wife. “We looked up the most popular wedding venues in Milwaukee, and basically just hopped around town to each venue to see if there was a wedding happening. We stumbled across your venue and went inside. We followed the music, where it was coming from, and found your wedding."

@1dsteeno Found them! @Gracelyn and Valerie Part 1 #weddingtok #weddingcrashers #part1 ♬ original sound - Danny Steeno

Gracelyn also shared that she initially saw the video after it was shared by a coworker who thought they had just found her lookalike. Pretty soon more and more text came flooding in, prompting the two to come clean.

While Gracelyn and Valerie admitted that they sadly did not bring a wedding gift, they commended Danny and Daisy for having free chips and "really good" guacamole, and jokingly assured them that their "presence" was the present.

But still, Danny seemed to have gotten the last laugh, as he quipped, "I feel like we at least have to have the opportunity to crash each of your weddings in the future." To which Gracelyn and Valerie wholeheartedly agreed, saying that while an actual invite would not be sent, they would “get hints and clues in the mail." You know, just to keep in theme.

@1dsteeno Our turn to crash @Gracelyn and Valerie #weddingday #part4 #weddingcrashers ♬ original sound - Danny Steeno

Apparently, Daisy and Danny aren’t the only ones to have had a crashed wedding turn into a surprisingly lovely experience.

“A friend and I crashed a wedding and got caught. I have been best friends for 30 years with the person we got caught by! I’m invited to all the family functions now.”

“My wife and I got married 27 years ago. We had crashers at our wedding. We always thought it was a badge of honor to have a reception worth crashing!”

“Once my hubs and I crashed a wedding in Palm Beach and he ended up in the middle of a circle on the dance floor and had every guest and the bride and groom transfixed.”

Not saying wedding crashing should necessarily be the next new trend, but it is a testament to how a sense of humor can transform nearly any experience into something both magical and memorable.

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Joy

The 17 harsh truths about aging that people were never 'prepared' for

"How your mind stays young while your body starts to slow down."

via Kindel Media/Pexels

A woman contemplating aging

Many of us feel invincible when we are young, believing we can control the aging process so that we’ll always stay forever young, as Bob Dylan once sang. But there’s a moment when everyone realizes aging is an inevitable process and that, eventually, we will have to deal with a slow decline in our physical and, quite possibly, mental capabilities.

This realization and understanding that we won’t be here forever can profoundly change one’s perspective on life. Even though aging is inevitable, studies show how we think about the process can significantly impact our longevity. People with a positive view of aging live an average of 7.5 years longer than those without.

Things happen as we age that are impossible to describe to younger people. However, a group of Redditors did an excellent job of explaining the truths about aging that they were not “prepared” for in a recent thread that made a lot of people feel seen. A user named sofiagympixie asked the AskReddit forum, “What’s a truth about aging that no one prepared you for?” and it received over 2,700 responses.

A big takeaway is that many people feel like they stop mentally aging at a certain point, usually in their late 20s. Still, the continued physical aging they experience makes them feel like they cannot relate to the person in the mirror.



Here are 17 of the most profound responses to the question: What’s a truth about aging that no one prepared you for?

1. There is an end

"You start to realize the older you get that the end is closer than the beginning and you still feel like you have so much more to do."

"That moment where you start to get a sense that there is an end."

2. It takes energy to keep everything afloat

"No one prepared me for how much energy and time it takes to maintain everything—like health, relationships, and just staying organized. It’s way more work than I expected!"

3. Mind/body detachment

"How your mind stays young while your body starts to slow down. You still feel like the same person you’ve always been, but suddenly you notice little things changing."

"This was such a surprise to me. I really expected to feel psychologically older as I aged. But physically, oh my body has betrayed me... Eyes... hair (gray, but at least I still have it)... back... knees... hips... prostate."



4. The past feels closer than it is

"When you get a flashback of a good memory and you realize that was over 10 years ago."

"When I told my daughter about something I did 24 years ago, I had to pause for a moment."

Time flies isn't just a saying. Psychologists agree that our minds lump time together based on novel experiences. When we are older, the days are a lot more similar than when we were young children. That's why when you're 80, time moves a lot faster than it did when you were 8.

5. Stuck in the wrong time

"I’m 61, and sometimes I feel like this world is not for me anymore. I feel almost like an imposter. For example, I can’t find clothes I like that fit correctly, TV is abhorrent, only old music sounds pleasant, shoes are uncomfortable, I don’t recognize most celebrities or famous people in the news or tabloids, and I don’t understand the need for most new and supposedly exciting products. I’m an educated person, I still work and have an active life. I’m not a recluse. But a little at a time, I feel the world is moving on without me. I finally understand why, in her final years, my mother only watched movies from the 1950s and reminisced about the past more than she talked about the present. Her world was long gone."



6. You lose friends

"If you choose not to have kids, you may end up losing your friends. I turn 40 this year, and my partner and I don't see many folks these days. Parents like to hang out with other parents. And I don't have a grudge, I totally see the value for playdates, etc. But it can be a little lonely."

"To be fair, I have 2 kids and lost a lot of friends because we simply don’t have the time/energy to connect regularly enough to maintain a healthy friendship. It instead falls into an awkward acquaintance stage where enough time passes between communication, and you’re not sure if reaching out to connect comes across weird."

7. Your parents are aging, too

"It's not just you who is getting old. Your parents are getting even older."

"I feel this. Lost my mom 2 weeks before my 21st birthday. 40 now with 2 kids. I get angry/sad at a lot of milestones like my wedding and kids' stuff ‘cause my mom was robbed of them, and I was robbed of her."

8. Time wasted caring about other people's opinions

"It’s so freeing when that old twinge of 'why don’t they like me' pops up, and then I remember that I can not be bothered by that anymore, and magically, I don’t care!"

"Just wasting time in general. No thanks. I want to do as many things as possible!"



9. Your friends die

"Your friends start to die. It's something I never thought about."

10. Time flies

"Man. I don’t even feel like the days are long anymore. I just keep blinking and the weeks go by."

"Yup, wake up, eat breakfast, do a couple things. Wait, it’s lunch already? Eat lunch, do a couple more things, time to prep dinner. Eat dinner, clean up, fix a few things, it’s 9 pm. I guess it’s almost time to get ready for bed? This times 10,000 for me."

11. The monotony sets in

"You will realize that you hate planning meals and making food every single day. It's boring, and it's too easy to fall into monotony. But you have to make lunch again and then plan for dinner again then make dinner again and what do you want to eat tomorrow so you plan for breakfast tomorrow and get up and make breakfast again and then plan for lunch again...."

12. You become invisible to much of society

"I wondered what felt off the last year. Gen Z is everywhere now, and I'm still asking myself when that happened."



13. Adults aren't real

"When you're a kid, you can't wait to 'grow up,' and then you do, and you're still you, just older. That voice inside your head doesn't change, but what you see in the mirror does. Only now you're just older and saddled with bills and stress and all of life's 'surprises.' On top of this, everyone is winging it. Absolutely everyone. Because the idea of order and a civilized society is an illusion. We're all playing by made up rules and making imaginary money and all the rest of it. A one-dollar bill costs just as much to print as a hundred-dollar bill."

14. Priorities change

"Things that seemed so important when you were younger, really are not important."

15. Younger people's reverence

"I'm middle-aged, and a funny thing is how younger people get self-conscious or apologize when there is no need. For example, they will apologize for swearing around me or mentioning something like (gasp) drinking, or drugs, or sleeping around. I think it's funny. Why would being on earth longer make me easier to scandalize? I've seen and done things that would shock them, lol, but to them I'm a very proper-looking classy older lady."

16. Ageism

"Doors start closing once you reach a certain age."

"Ageism is real. I just turned 50 and am in a young person's career (software development). I feel how hiring managers look at me when asked to turn my camera on, during an interview that was going very well and suddenly it's 'we'll get back to you.'"

17. It all catches up

"Things like drinking, eating unhealthily, smoking, spending ... they will catch up. When you're young you think you're different, or you think that when it does catch up you'll be old so who cares, I won't care when I'm old anyway. You will care, though. You'll still be you. Those things won't seem like an issue right up to the moment they are. And then it's too late to take them back."

This article originally appeared in September.
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Family

Woman who was pressured to quit her job to raise stepdaughter's baby makes a bold decision

This sparked an important conversation about family responsibility.

via Pixabay

When parents can't step up, should grandparents step in?

A story that recently went viral on Reddit’s AITA forum asks an important question: What is a parent’s role in taking care of their grandchildren? The story is even further complicated because the woman at the center of the controversy is a stepparent.

At the time of writing her post, the woman, 38, met her husband Sam, 47, ten years ago, when his daughter, Leah, 25, was 15. The couple married five years ago after Leah had moved out to go to college.

Leah’s mom passed away when she was 10.

When Leah became pregnant she wanted to keep the baby, but her boyfriend didn’t. After the disagreement, the boyfriend broke up with her. This forced Leah to move back home because she couldn’t afford to be a single parent and live alone on a teacher’s salary.

Leah’s story is familiar to many young mothers facing similar difficulties.

The father isn’t involved in the baby’s life as a caretaker or financially. Sadly, research shows that 33% of all children in the U.S. are born without their biological fathers living in the home.

a young mother holds her baby

Single motherhood comes with unique hardships.

via Alexander Grey/Unsplash

The new mother is a teacher and can’t afford to live on her own with a child. In 2019, a study found that out the top 50 U.S. cities, Pittsburgh is the only one where a new teacher could afford rent.

Today, Portland, OR has joined the very short list of cities where an "average teacher can afford 91.3% of apartments within community distance of their school" according to a recent study.

The stressors of taking care of the baby made Leah realize she needed help.

“But once she had the baby around 4 months back, Leah seemed to realize having a baby is not the sunshine and rainbows she thought it was,” the woman wrote on Reddit. “She barely got any sleep during the last four months. All the while Sam was helping her with the baby while I did almost all chores myself.”

“Now her leave is ending. She did not want to leave the baby at daycare or with a nanny,” the woman continued. “Sam and I both work as well.”

Leah asked her stepmother if she would stay home with the baby. The stepmother said no because she never wanted to have a baby and she has a job. “I asked why Leah can't stay home with the baby herself,” the woman wrote. “She said how she was young and had to build a career. I said many people take breaks to raise kids, and she broke down crying about how she was so tired all the time being a mom and needed something else in her life too.”

A woman holds a newborn baby.

The demands of new motherhood are usually all-encompassing.

via Pixabay

After the woman told her stepdaughter no, her husband pressured her to stay home with the baby. But she refused to give up her job to raise her stepdaughter’s child. “Leah said yesterday how she wished her mom was alive since she would have had her back. She said I didn't love her, and my husband is also mad at me,” the woman wrote. The woman asked the Reddit community if she was in the wrong for “refusing to help my stepdaughter with the baby,” and the community responded with rapturous support.

"[The woman] should tell her husband to knock it off and stop trying to pressure her into raising his daughter’s baby. If he wants a family member to look after her baby while she works, then he can do it," user Heavy_Sand5228 wrote.

"This is Leah's baby that she alone chose to have. That doesn't obligate you to change YOUR life to suit her desires. The whole business of saying you don't love her because you won't quit your job to watch her baby is manipulative and messed up, and I'm shocked your husband is siding with her," user SupremeCourtJust-a** added.

Leah and many women like her are in this situation because, in many places, teachers are underpaid, rent is high, and not all dads pay child support, even those required by law.

Another commenter noted that the baby is much more the father’s responsibility than the stepmother's. "To add, Leah should consider seeking child support from her ex. Her kid should be getting that money," Obiterdicta wrote.

While there are resources to help stepparents connect with their stepchildren and step-grandchildren, it's important to remember that the responsibility to raise a child ultimately rests with the parent(s).

This article originally appeared last year.

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Family

Mom issues important warning to tween parents about 'the fire truck game'

It's really not a game at all.

Representative Image from Canva

Every parent should know about this game. Many have experienced it as kids.

Nurse and mom Jinny Schmidt wants parents to be aware of a game that’s circulating amongst tweens right now, because it’s not a game at all.

In a PSA posted to her TikTok, Schmidt shared that her daughter informed her that boys in her class were beginning to play what she called “The Fire Truck Game.”

As Schmidt begins to describe what the “game” entails, it’s easy to see why she’s concerned. All parents should be.

Here’s how the game works: a boy puts his hand on a girl’s lower thigh. He tells her, “My hand is a fire truck” as he slowly moves it up her leg. When the girl gets uncomfortable, she is supposed to say, “Red light.” Except for when the girl says, “Red light,” the boy responds with, “Sorry, fire trucks don’t stop for red lights.” And so they run their hand all the way up the girl’s leg, Schmidt explains, and sometimes they “touch the girl’s crotch.” Yikes.

According to Parents, this game has been around for at least a decade. Many viewers noted growing up with the Fire Truck Game, or a version of it called “The Nervous Game,” or “Red Light Green Light.” Suddenly The “Squid Game” version of “Red Light Green Light” doesn’t seem so bad.

No matter what it’s called, though, it’s touching without consent and is inappropriate on so many levels, not least of which being that it’s an excuse for sexual assault. Hence Schmidt’s alarm.

“I know that kids will be kids and kids will do some stupid shit, But we’ve got to do better teaching our boys to keep their hands off of other people and teaching our girls that it’s okay to have boundaries,” she says, before asking parents to “be aware” if they hear their kids talking about it.
@the.funny.nurse Y’all gonna see me on the 6 O’clock news. #jrhigh #kids #tween #preteen #parents #moms #momsoftiktok #dads #dadsoftiktok #teacher #teachersoftiktok #publicschool #school #firetruck #firetruckgame #firetruckgameawareness #girls #boys #game ♬ original sound - Jin-Jin

And she is, of course, absolutely right. Folks who watched her video wholeheartedly agreed that the behavior should not be tolerated, and many shared some pretty intense, although warranted, reactions to it.

“We’d be playing a game called Ambulance next,” one person wrote.

“Press charges,” said another.

“We have a game also. It’s called ‘oops I broke your finger,’” a third added.

But many also chimed in to say that they would be talking to their kids immediately about it, which is probably the best route overall. That way kids can protect themselves, and others around them.

Middle school years in general are pretty rough. They can be just as difficult to navigate for parents as they can be for the kids going through them. It’s painful to watch your still baby-faced child go through many of the same awful pains you did—many unavoidable. But some things, like terrible and abusive games, can be avoided. Make sure to keep your tweens safe and aware by having those important conversations when you can.


This article originally appeared in April.

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