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Note To Justin Bieber: Here's How You Write An Unforgettable Love Song
"Oh Sweet Lorraine" is going to be on every mixtape I make from now on.
09.17.13
Images from YouTube video.
Addie Rodriguez does her cheer.
Addie Rodriguez was supposed to take the field with her dad during a high school football game, where he, along with other dads, would lift her onto his shoulders for a routine. But Addie's dad was halfway across the country, unable to make the event.
Her father is Abel Rodriguez, a veteran airman who, after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was training at Travis Air Force Base in California, 1,700 miles from his family in San Antonio at the time.
"Mom missed the memo it was parent day, and the reason her mom missed the memo was her dad left Wednesday," said Alexis Perry-Rodriguez, Addie's mom. She continued, "It was really heartbreaking to see your daughter standing out there being the only one without their father, knowing why he's away. It's not just an absentee parent. He's serving our country."
But as Addie sat there in front of the game's crowd, with no one to join her on the field, someone ran toward her. That person was Central Catholic High School senior Matthew Garcia, who went to her after realizing she was the only cheerleader without a partner.
Garcia told local news station FOX 29, "I ran down from the bleachers right here, and I just hopped the fence, and I went over, and I kneeled down, I talked to her and I said, 'Are you OK?'"
He then lifted Addie onto his shoulders just like the dads did with their daughters so she could participate in the routine. Many onlookers quickly realized they were witnessing an extraordinary act of kindness, and social media was abuzz:
It may have been a small gesture for Garcia, but as Addie tells it, that little bit of assistance meant the world to her. They posed for a picture after the routine was done, and it's clear this will be one encounter she won't soon forget.
Addie Rodriguez and Mathew Garcia.
Images from YouTube video.
"I just felt like somebody saved my life," Addie said, adding, "I thought that's so nice, especially since my dad's serving for us.”
Watch the YouTube video below:
This article originally appeared on 08.21.18
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Photo by Katie Emslie on Unsplash
There are times in parenting where you just feel kind of useless.
You can't carry the baby, take a late-night breastfeeding shift, or absorb any of the pain and discomfort of childbirth.
Sometimes the best you can do is to try to take care of your partner.
That's what brought user u/DietyBeta to the AskParents subreddit with a well-meaning question.
"My wife watches our 1yo, works, and is 12 week pregnant. How can I make her daily life easier while I'm away at work?"
He says that when he gets home from work, he takes over all parenting and homemaking duties.
But yeesh! That's still... a lot to handle. No wonder his wife is stressed out.
A few folks chimed in to pat the OP on the back. After all, it's great to see a dad who realizes how much is falling on mom's shoulders and actively looking for ways to lighten the load!
Some helpful suggestions rolled in, like taking over meal prep and making her easy lunches to heat up, hiring cleaners, or paying someone to walk the dogs.
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
But then even more people came in to the comments asking the same question over and over: If mom is working, why isn't the 1-year-old in daycare?
u/young-mommy wrote: "Is the one year old in daycare? If not, I would start there. Working from home with a child gets harder and harder as they enter toddlerhood"
u/min2themax said: "It’s nice of you to be asking how to help her but she really is getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop here. It sounds like she is literally always working or parenting. Sometimes both at the same time. Walking the dogs and making her lunches and prepping meals and doing laundry is all well and good but this is not at all sustainable."
u/alternative-box3260 said: "Have the one year old in daycare. I was in a similar situation and it’s impossible. I was able to breath after that, not before."
And u/sillychihuahua26 wrote: "She’s caring for your 1.year old while working? That’s a horrible plan. You guys need childcare like yesterday."
We have a legitimate childcare crisis in our country, and stories like this one really bring it to life.
Childcare in the United States isn't nearly accessible or affordable enough for most families. Period.
ChildCare Aware found that that average cost of childcare in 2022 was $10,853 per year, or roughly 10% of a median family income (in 2024, it's likely even more than that — yet the actual workers at childcare centers are somehow severely underpaid).
But even that eye-popping number is conservative. Anyone who lives anywhere close to a city (or in California or New York) knows the number will be way higher. It's just not feasible for most families to put their child, let alone multiple children, in full-time care while they're young.
And yet! The percentage of households with two parents working full-time has been rising for decades. Life is more expensive than ever, and the extra income from two working parents really helps, even if it's offset by those child care costs.
More and more families are trying to scrape by — by trying to do it all
Photo by Keren Fedida on Unsplash
Now we don't know whether the OP's family can afford childcare for their 1-year-old or not, although in a later update to the post he wrote:
"As far as daycare, she doesn't want to because she feels like she would be missing out on the time"
So even if you can afford childcare, there's the still the crushing guilt of shipping your child off to be raised by strangers to deal with! Classic.
(Take one guess who shoulders most of the daycare guilt — dads or moms?)
The work-from-home revolution has been a Godsend for parents in certain ways — flexibility, balance, less commuting time — but its also saddled many of them with double duty.
'Hey how about you work full-time because we need the money AND keep an eye on the kids, since you're home anyway!'
But it doesn't work like that, and trying to do both is crushing modern parents.
In fact, the Surgeon General of the United States just put out an official advisory based on the plummeting mental state of today's parents.
We know parents are having a hard time and that it's getting picked up in the national conversation. But hearing about a mom working full-time with a 1-year-old on her hip while pregnant, and a dad stuck working out of the house who's at a total loss for how to make things better really paints a pretty bleak picture.
No one should have to work full-time and parent full-time, at the same time.
A fridge full of microwavable lunches and a fleet of dog walkers isn't going to make it any better until things start changing from the very top.
This is not a before picture.
When Molly Galbraith posted on Facebook a photo of herself on a beach in a bikini, her caption wasn't your usual "look at me" selfie.
"This not a before picture. This is not an after picture," she writes.
Based in Lexington, Kentucky, Galbraith is the owner and co-founder of Girls Gone Strong, a company that seeks to provide fitness solutions and community not influenced by the juggernaut, multi-billion dollar weight loss industry, and in her caption for the Facebook post, she creating a litany of what her body has experienced and withstood. "This is a body that loves protein and vegetables and queso and ice cream. This is a body that loves bent presses and pull-ups and deadlifts and sleep. This is a body that has been abused with fast food and late nights and stress. This body has been publicly evaluated, judged, and criticized."
Galbraith's list goes on, and, so far, the image and caption have spread like wildfire across Facebook, inspiring many others.
"This is the first year in as long as I can remember that I have made NO resolutions to change the way my body looks," writes Galbraith. "Today this is a body that is loved, adored, and cherished by the only person whose opinion matters — ME."
Strikers, Ludlow Tent Colony, 1914.
The early 1900s were a time of great social upheaval in our country. During the years leading up to the Ludlow Massacre, miners all around the country looking to make a better life for themselves and their families set up picket lines, organized massive parades and rallies, and even took up arms. Some died.
It's always worth considering why history like this was never taught in school before. Could it be that the powers that be would rather keep this kind of thing under wraps?
Here is Woody Guthrie's tribute to the good people who fought in the battles of Ludlow to help make a better tomorrow for everyone — you can just start the video and then start reading, if you wish:
Coal Country, Colorado
100 years ago, the Rocky Mountains were the source of a vast supply of coal. At its peak, it employed 16,000 people and accounted for 10% of all employed workers in the state of Colorado. It was dangerous work; in just 1913 alone, the mines claimed the lives of over 100 people. There were laws in place that were supposed to protect workers, but largely, management ignored those, which led to Colorado having double the on-the-job fatality rate of any other mining state.
It was a time of company towns, when all real estate, housing, doctors, and grocery stores were owned by the coal companies themselves, which led to the suppression of dissent as well as overinflated prices and an extreme dependence on the coal companies for everything that made life livable. In some of these, workers couldn't even leave town, and armed guards made sure they didn't. Also, if any miner or his family began to air grievances, they might find themselves evicted and run out of town.
Strikers, Ludlow Tent Colony, 1914.
Union Parade, Trinidad, Colorado, 1913. Images via Colorado Coal Field War Project/University of Denver Library.
The Union
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) had been organizing for many years in the area, and this particular company, Colorado Fuel and Iron, was one of the biggest in the West — and was owned by the Rockefeller family, notoriously anti-union.
Put all this together, and it was a powder keg.
The Ludlow Colony before the massacre, 1914.
Photo from Youtube video.
Strikers, Ludlow Tent Colony, 1914.
Photo from Youtube video.
Strikers, Ludlow Tent Colony, 1914.
Photo from Youtube video.
Strike!
When a strike was called in 1913, the coal company evicted all the miners from their company homes, and they moved to tent villages on leased land set up by the UMWA. Company-hired guards (aka “goons") and members of the Colorado National Guard would drive by the tent villages and randomly shoot into the tents, leading the strikers to dig holes under their tents and the wooden beams that supported them.
Why did the union call for a strike? The workers wanted:
- (equivalent to a 10% wage increase),
- Enforcement of the eight-hour work day,
- Payment for "dead work" that usually wasn't compensated, such as laying coal car tracks,
- The job known as “Weight-checkmen" to be elected by workers. This was to keep company weightmen honest so the workers got paid for their true work,
- The right to use any store rather than just the company store, and choose their own houses and doctors,
- Strict enforcement of Colorado's laws, especially mine safety laws.
Cavalry charge on striker women in nearby Trinidad.
Photo from Youtube video.
Militia and private detectives or mine guards, Ludlow.
Photo from Youtube video.
The Powder Keg Explodes
The attacks from the goons continued, as did the battles between scabs (strikebreakers) and the miners. It culminated in an attack on April 20, 1914, by company goons and Colorado National Guard soldiers who kidnapped and later killed the main camp leader and some of his fellow miners, and then set the tents in the main camp ablaze with kerosene. As they were engulfed, people inside the tents tried to flee the inferno; many were shot down as they tried to escape. Some also died in the dugouts below the burning tents. In the first photograph below, two women and 11 children died in the fire directly above them. A day that started off with Orthodox Easter celebrations for the families became known as the Ludlow Massacre.
The "Death Pit."
Photo from Youtube video.
Rear view of ruins of tent colony.
Photo from Youtube video.
Funeral procession for Louis Tikas, leader of Greek strikers.
Photo from Youtube video.
The 10-Day War
The miners, fresh off the murders of their friends and family members, tried to get President Woodrow Wilson to put a stop to the madness, but he deferred to the governor, who was pretty much in the pocket of the mine companies.
So the miners and those at other tent colonies quickly armed themselves, knowing that many other confrontations were coming. And they went to the mines that were being operated by scabs and forced many of them to close, sometimes setting fire to the buildings. After 10 days of pitched battle and at least 50 dead, the president finally sent in the National Guard, which promptly disarmed both sides.
Union Victory
While close to 200 people died over the course of about 18 months before and after the battles at Ludlow and the union ultimately lost the election, the Ludlow Massacre brought a congressional investigation that led to the beginnings of child-labor laws and an eight-hour workday, among other things.
But it also brought national attention to the plight of these miners and their families, and it showed the resilience and strength that union people could display when they remained united, even in the face of extreme corporate and government violence. Historian Howard Zinn called it "the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history." And the primary mine owner, John D. Rockefeller Jr., received a lot of negative attention and blame for what happened here.
The UMWA is still a solid union today, and there is a monument in Colorado to those who died in the Ludlow Massacre.
Image by Mark Walker/Wikimedia Commons.
This article was written by Brandon Weber and originally appeared on 08.14.14