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Starbucks U.K. trained its staff to be more parent-friendly. Here's what that means.

Get ready for emergency diapers and bottle-warming services.

As if we needed another reason to love Starbucks: It's making a major effort to welcome and support parents and their babies.

If you're a parent, you've probably been here: You’re exhausted and sleep-deprived and all you want from life is a caramel Frappuccino, but you don’t feel like enduring the stares and/or comments you’ll receive if, heaven forbid, your little one needs to cry or nurse while you’re sucking in that sweet life force through a green straw.

... so you endure a sad, sad Frappuccino-less day.


GIF via “The Office.”

But Starbucks U.K. gets it. It's collaborating with the National Childbirth Trust to make every Starbucks in the U.K. (that’s 800+ Starbucks) parent-friendly.

The National Childbirth Trust created its Parent Friendly Places Charter to recognize organizations that have committed to welcoming parents and being responsive to parents’ needs.

“We want all of our customers to have a good experience at Starbucks,” Rhys Iley, vice president of operations for Starbucks EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), said in a press release. “And we recognize that parents out on their own with very young children, sometimes for the first time, appreciate some support.”

Photo via Starbucks, used with permission.

What does it mean to be “parent-friendly”?

Emergency diapers, help when you need it, and improved store design with parents in mind.

“We know from our members, that many struggle with unwanted attention and comments on their feeding method whether it’s by breast, bottle or in a high chair, when out and about with their baby or child,” Dr. Sarah McMullen, head of research and quality at NCT, said in a press release. “It’s important that parents feel reassured they have the support of staff and won’t be judged.”

Forgot your diaper bag? Need a bottle warmed? Can’t find a seat or need help carrying something? Starbucks’ U.K. staff have now been trained to be there for parents when they need it most: when they’re venti tired and need a break.

GIF via “The Lego Movie.”

I'm a Starbucks fiend and breastfeeding mama who rarely takes her kids out in public because it's too stressful, so this would be a game-changer for me (and for groggy parents everywhere).

Bravo, Starbucks U.K.

Hopefully this is the start of a corporate trend that will find its way to the States sooner rather than later.

GIF via U.S. Women's Soccer.

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ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

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If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

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via UnbreakableMomma/TikTok

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A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

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These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

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Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

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Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

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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.

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