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Family

Mom shares her wholesome and hilarious response to son’s letter coming out as transgender

coming out to parent, mom responds to trans son

Cherie Garcia posted her son's coming out letter on Twitter.

Cherie Garcia managed to score some major mom points from her response to her child's creative—yet slightly flawed—coming out letter.

Using colorful cut-out letters, Garcia's son Crow made a short letter coming out as transgender, which looked something like a ransom note. The message was meant to be: Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of your very own son.

Garcia was nonchalant about the announcement, but she did notice something unsettling that every mom would notice. And she was quick to point it out.


Aware that something was getting ready to transpire (mother's intuition, after all) Garcia told Crow's dad—her ex-husband—on the phone that Crow was "either working on homework or holding someone ransom" after walking by his room. She was relieved to find out that neither was the case.

Garcia's tweet read: "My teenager handed me this envelope and asked that I wait to open it until after he went to his dad's house. After opening it, I called to let him know that the *only* thing that's wrong with this is the 'r' he accidentally left out of congratulations." She concluded the tweet with a supportive trans and rainbow flag emoji. Thanks, mom.

Garcia and Crow make a game out of pointing out spelling errors on signs, so she felt especially compelled to call him out on that missing "r."

The follow-up tweet is really the kicker here. "There is nothing my kids could do to lose my support and unconditional love. My prayer for each of them is that they live life as their authentic selves, without compromise. My teen is figuring things out and I support him 100%, because God created both of my babies perfectly."

Garcia's welcoming embrace for her son, along with the bonus spelling lesson, soon went viral on Twitter. Comments came flooding in from other parents wanting to commiserate with the coming-out letters they had received.

"I love the drama of it," wrote one mom. "My own non binary kiddo nailed a note to their door in the middle of the night and declared that if we must refer to them to refer to them as our spawn. I commented on the atrocious handwriting."

Garcia's reply? "I'll call you Voltron if you want, but please spell it correctly."

Another person shared their own creative process while coming out, saying "I couldn't decide when I came out so I gave my parents 3 different cards. This was one" followed by a (really well done) image of Pinocchio saying "I'm a real boy."

Every kid just wants to be seen as perfect in their mom's eyes. Spelling is important (as Garcia jokingly stated on Twitter) but to a teenager going through a major identity transition, compassion and acceptance are crucial. Growing up and figuring yourself out is no easy process. But knowing mom is always gonna love you, no matter what, at least makes it seem a little less impossible.

Thanks Cherie Garcia for the spelling lesson and gesture of love all-in-one. And to Crow, congatulations.

@rexartistry/TikTok

One generation is way better about taking up space.

While millennials and Gen Zer’s often get lumped together as the “young group,” they are certainly not the same. (Although, it is kind of hard to tell with all the Y2K fashion floating around.)

But speaking as a millennial, we definitely have different approaches to life, a lot of which seems to come down to a sense of self-assuredness. That goes for shopping, socializing, self expression…and even going to the hair salon, apparently.

Alexis Rex (@rex.artistry), hairstylist and owner of Rex Artistry Salon in Maryland, gave a brilliant (and hilarious) demonstration of some key personality differences between her millennial clients and her Gen Z clients in a now viral TikTok video.

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Family

5-year-old gave his mom advice for handling nerves. It was both adorable and spot-on.

"You say, ‘I am brave of this meeting!’, ‘I am loved!’, ‘I smell good!"

Kids really do say the darnedest things.

This article originally appeared on 01.31.22


Any parent knows that kids can be surprisingly astute little philosophers at the most unexpected times. One minute your child is throwing a tantrum because you sliced their sandwich wrong, and the next they are blowing you away with their deep preschool thoughts. It's enough to give you whiplash, but it's also one of the most fun things about being around kids. You never know what they're going to say and sometimes what they say is just awesome.

Case in point: This 5-year-old who gave his mom some sage advice about handling her nerves.

Twitter user @Eprecipice (StressieBessie) shared the story in a tweet thread. She wrote:

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via Jess Martini / Tik Tok

This article originally appeared on 01.27.21


There are few things as frightening to a parent than losing your child in a crowded place like a shopping mall, zoo, or stadium. The moment you realize your child is missing, it's impossible not to consider the terrifying idea they may have been kidnapped.

A woman in New Zealand recently lost her son in a Kmart but was able to locate him because of a potentially life-saving parenting hack she saw on TikTok a few months ago.

The woman was shopping at the retailer when she realized her two-year-old son Nathan was missing. She immediately told a friend to alert the staff to ensure he didn't leave through the store's front exit.

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Health

Women are shocking their boyfriends by showing them how  tampons actually work

The viral videos are a great way to educate men on a sensitive topic.

via TikTok

This article originally appeared on 01.27.21


Menstrual taboos are as old as time and found across cultures. They've been used to separate women from men physically — menstrual huts are still a thing — and socially, by creating the perception that a natural bodily function is a sign of weakness.

Even in today's world women are deemed unfit for positions of power because some men actually believe they won't be able to handle stressful situations while mensurating.

"Menstruation is an opening for attack: a mark of shame, a sign of weakness, an argument to keep women out of positions of power,' Colin Schultz writes in Popular Science.

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Teachers share the best excuses.

This story originally appeared on 02.24.22


Kindergarten through 12th grade teachers and college professors have heard every excuse in the book. Whether it’s a third grader claiming their “dog ate my homework” or a college freshman claiming their grandmother died to get out of a test, they’ve heard it all a billion times.

A college professor once listed the top 21 excuses he’s heard from his students. Here are the top five:

5. “It’s the last week of the semester.”

4. “It’s St. Patrick’s Day or 4/20”

3. “Our other teacher held us back.”

2. “My timetable showed the class was canceled.”

1. “I’m taking a vacation.”

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This article originally appeared on 01.22.21


Having lived in small towns and large cities in the Pacific Northwest, Southwest, and Midwest, and after spending a year traveling around the U.S. with my family, I've seen first-hand that Americans have much more in common than not. I've also gotten to experience some of the cultural differences, subtle and not-so-subtle, real and not-so-real, that exist in various parts of the country.

Some of those differences are being discussed in a viral thread on Twitter. Self-described "West coaster" Jordan Green kicked it off with an observation about East coasters being kind and West coasters being nice, which then prompted people to share their own social experiences in various regions around the country.

Green wrote:

"When I describe East Coast vs West Coast culture to my friends I often say 'The East Coast is kind but not nice, the West Coast is nice but not kind,' and East Coasters immediately get it. West Coasters get mad.

Niceness is saying 'I'm so sorry you're cold,' while kindness may be 'Ugh, you've said that five times, here's a sweater!' Kindness is addressing the need, regardless of tone.

I'm a West Coaster through and through—born and raised in San Francisco, moved to Portland for college, and now live in Seattle. We're nice, but we're not kind. We'll listen to your rant politely, smile, and then never speak to you again. We hit mute in real life. ALOT.

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