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Jessica Biel puts a funny twist on the mysteries of sexual health in a new sketch series.

When it comes to birth control, the questions are endless.

Shouldn't birth control come with sound effects so you remember to take it?

Can you get struck by lightning if you have an IUD?

And what's up with the millions of condom sizes these days?

Don't get actress Jessica Biel started on those.

Actually, do. She has some thoughts.


Road trip convo GIF via F--- Yeah Jessica Biel.

Biel has many questions about reproductive health and how the body works — just like you do — and she's bringing them up in a funny and clever way.

In the brand new Funny or Die sketch series for WomanCare Global, Biel is opening the gates to a judgment-free zone for people who have questions about reproductive health. But don't count on her to have all of the answers.

The series "If You Don't Tell Them, Then Who Will?" features Biel and actors Whitney Cummings and Joy Bryant as they sit around, spitballing random thoughts about sex and the body. It's funny and original and helps to break the stigma around sex.

In the series, no question is off limits. And when you think about it, isn't that how we should approach sex ed in the real world?

Too bad that hasn't always been a reality. Biel remembers how humiliating it was when she first got her period in fifth grade. She was in a school play, wearing a gray beard and a pad the size of a skateboard and thinking, "What is happening to me?" She had no idea.


GIF from the one and only "Mean Girls."

Fast forward many years later when her and hubby, Justin Timberlake (ever heard of him?), decided they wanted to bring a baby into our TMZ-, cronut-filled world. And once again, she felt confused.

"Suddenly I realized I really didn't know what's going on inside my own body," she told Glamour. "It was shocking."

She's far from alone. We've all privately Googled stuff about our bodies in hopes we can make sense of what's happening to our insides ... our outsides ... and to each other.

Biel's questions about her own body prompted her to join the initiative to educate women, men, and young people about the different stages of reproductive life — and to get people talking more openly about it.

After all, you can't know what you don't know.

From WomanCare Global:

The tagline, "If You Don't Tell Them, Then Who Will," refers to the parent to child relationship, as well as the exchange of information from partner to partner, and from peer to peer. Each video – which is not meant as an instructional sex education resource – will center on a particular topic illustrating why women and girls should not rely on a random internet search, the media, a celebrity or misinformed friends to steer important decisions about their bodies and reproductive health.

As anti-women's health lawmakers continue their crusade against Planned Parenthood and try to push abstinence-only education into schools across the country, now is the time for us to be open with one another and use fact-based learnings to our society's advantage.

There is nothing more empowering than making informed decisions and being in control of your own destiny.

So do your research, listen to science, support one another, and go be your own awesome self.

And be sure to catch Biel and her crew talk about the pill, IUDs, and condoms. Super short and funny:

Learning

The one sign that someone is highly intelligent, according to literary genius Leo Tolstoy

He was a master of understanding the human condition.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.

Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist known for epic works such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina. His life experiences—from witnessing war to spiritual quests—profoundly 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.

Julian de Medeiros, a TikToker who shares his thoughts on philosophy, recently shared how Tolstoy knew if someone was highly intelligent—and his observation says something extraordinary about humanity.

intelligence, thinking, thought process, humanity, humansAn intelligent man's thought process.Canva Photos

“The more intelligent a person is, the more he discovers kindness in others,” Tolstoy once wrote. “For nothing enriches the world more than kindness. It makes mysterious things clear, difficult things easy, and dull things cheerful.”

@julianphilosophy

Intelligent people are kind #intelligent #intelligence #kindness #smart #tolstoy #men #women


De Medeiros boiled down Tolstoy’s thoughts into a simple statement: “Intelligent people are unafraid to be kind.” 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."

kindness, intelligence, humanity, human condition, be kindKids 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.

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Family

'SAHMs Listen up!': Texas UPS driver has blunt message about entitlement and stay-at-home moms

“I mean, how entitled could you be?”

via J.R. Minton (used with permission)

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 “SAHMs Listen up!” that begins with him asking, “I mean, how entitled could you be?” At first, Minton appears to fail to appreciate the enormous amount of emotional, mental, and physical labor that stay-at-home moms provide.

“I 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,” Minton continues. “Let’s 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?”

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.

@minton__jr

Grow tf up—You should be doing more. #sahm #sahmlife #momlife #mom #momsoftiktok #sahmsoftiktok #sahmtok #momtok


“For 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,” he continues. “She 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.”

The commenters on the video breathed sighs of relief and then praised Minton, a father of 4, for publicly appreciating his wife’s work.

sigh of relief, relief, woman sighing, exhaustion, exasperation, joyA 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,” a stay-at-home mother wrote.

People appreciate Minton’s post because he praised stay-at-home mothers and placed his wife’s 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 “carefree life” to them.

"Married life, with children, is bound to be chaotic," Minton told Upworthy. "It’s bound to have its ups and downs; It’s made me question myself a thousand times. However, the marriage my wife and I share has given me the space to find peace."

via Canva/Photos

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. There’s 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 isn’t 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 “helps” his wife with chores.


The twist in this video was that he doesn’t “help” 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,” he reveals.

He then urged men to change their perspectives on how they view stay-at-home moms. “Change 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. “Pretty much everything about my parenting style is in spite of what I saw when I was growing up,” 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.

This article originally appeared in January 2025.

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Pop Culture

The super interesting reason why people in the past looked so much older than people today

It isn't just the hairstyles.

via Nick Denner/Flickr and Canva/Photos

How are these both high schoolers?

Have you ever looked back at your parents’ 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 ‘60s and the kids had horn-rimmed glasses or the ‘80s 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, “What are they, 35?”

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. It’s 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?

“Specialists have looked into this phenomenon, and it does have some scientific facts to back it up,” the narrator states. “It'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.”

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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. “We 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,” 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.

Let’s not forget the importance of a straight, white smile. Advances in dental care also help make people look younger.

1970s girls, high school girls, girls in uniforms, old high school photos, nostalgiaA "girl gang" in 1976. via Earthworm/Flickr

Why do people wearing styles from the past appear older?

Finally, there’s the clothes issue, and, yes, this does have a big impact on how we view the age of people from the past. “Our brains are wired to associate old trends with being old,” the video says. “For 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. “

girls in school, '60s high school girls, class room, old-school cool,GIrls in class in the 1960s.via Phillips Academy/Flickr

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 doesn’t 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.

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Parenting

Parents go viral for 'secret' praise technique. Science confirm it’s certifiably genius.

“I promise that if you do this in front of your child, their confidence will skyrocket!”

Credit: Instagram @namwilamulwanda

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 one—hiding in plain sight, or just out of it.

Namwila Mulwanda and her partner Zephi practice “gentle-parenting” 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 conversations—no 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, “POV: You talk behind your child's back so they can hear you.” Self-described as a “passionate mother, content creator, and small business owner,” Mulwanda naturally overflows with ideas: she writes a Substack, She Who Blooms, which is about “blooming in our own time, in our own way.” She also runs Rooted, a shop where she “carefully curates products that embody the essence of growth, empowerment, and staying rooted in one's true self.”

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 listening—which she is. With her within earshot but not directly part of the conversation, they discuss their daughter:

“I'm just so proud of her and the things she does,” her mom starts.

“She works on her reading, like that difficult word that she took the time to really sound out,” adds her dad. They go on to applaud her independence (“She's always telling me, 'Daddy, I want to brush my teeth on my own,'” says Zephi), before concluding that she's amazing.

“She's amazing,” says Mulwanda. “So, so, so amazing,” Zephi responds.



People in the comments were obviously here for it. Parents shared their own versions of this technique, including one who wrote, “As a solo mom, I pretend to make phone calls to a family member and do this.”

Another parent shared a powerful example:

“My 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.'”

Others reflected on their own childhoods. One commenter wrote, “No exaggeration, I'd be an entirely different person had my parents been like this with me.”

“Stop, 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,'” another enthusiastically shared.


child, hiding, parenting, conversations, praiseChildren believe that conversations between adults are more “authentic” and honest.Photo credit: Canva

Research indicates that indirect praise has a stronger psychological impact than direct praise, particularly in young children.

“This is such a powerful way of reinforcing positive behavior,” explains parenting influencer Cara Nicole, who also went viral for her unique approach to parenting. “There's something special about overhearing others talk about you—you know they're being genuine because they're not saying it directly to you.”

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: “She works on her reading, like that difficult word that she took the time to really sound out.”


via GIPHY

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 praise—like declaring “incredible” performance for average effort—can burden children with unrealistic expectations.

Keep it simple. A casual remark like, “I noticed how carefully Maya put away her toys without being asked. That was so nice. It really helped keep the house clean.”

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:

“To those of you who only heard negative as a child, you were never the problem. You were a child, and you didn’t 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 you’re there.” - Namwila Mulwanda


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Millennial mom calls out absent baby boomer grandparents for their misleading Facebook posts

They love their grandkids on social media, but...

via Canva/Photos

An older couple proudly staring at a laptop.

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. It’s 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 kids’ grandma and grandpa, aren't around to help. A big reason why baby boomers aren’t 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.

baby boomers, boomer grandparents, grandparents facebook, boomers laptopsAn older woman looking at a laptop.via Canva/Photos

Boomer grandparents on Facebook

Even though many boomer grandparents aren’t there for their children and grandchildren, many like to pretend they are by sharing photos of their grandkids at events they didn’t 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.

@motherphyllis

That’s why I don’t post anymore When the absent grandparent reposts the pictures acting like they know what’s going on #foryoupage #momlife #mom #relatable #fypシ #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. “I stopped posting altogether. For that reason,” one wrote. “My mom tags herself like she was there,” another added. “I blocked my mother-in-law because she would do the same thing and I can’t stand when she would act like she was seeing my son all the time when it’s only on his birthday and some holidays,” wrote another.

“I stopped posting. My mother posts things on her FB about how she misses her grandkids but she doesn’t even call them on their birthdays,” another frustrated mom wrote. “My monster in law doesn’t get to see anything I post because I have the privacy settings on. She thinks I never post pictures,” one more added.

young mom, stressed mom, baby, mom and baby, baby in bed, tired momA young mom who's exhausted.via Canva/Photos


Why are millennial parents so exhausted?

The topic of absentee boomer grandparents must be on many millennials' minds because one of Phyllis' videos, where she explains why her generation is “exhausted,” received over nine million views.


@motherphyllis

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 😊 #fyp #fypシ#mom #momlife #sahm #truth #viral #love @laneige_us

“If 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,” Phyllis said. “These new age grandparents, where they at? And don't even get me started on, ‘Oh, times have changed. Things are expensive.’ You can still hang out with your current grandkids.”

Obviously, it’s 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.

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