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Mom took her teenage son to the ER, and the doctor seriously doubted their relationship

"They doubted I was the parent."

via Coffe4LifeSage/TikTok

A young mom with her kids in the ER.

In the fall of 2023, young mother Sage Pasch’s unique family situation attracted a ton of online attention after the 20-something shared a six-second video on TikTok. The video has now been viewed over 48 million times and rests pinned at the top of Pasch's page because it shows how hard it can be for young moms to be taken seriously.

In the video, the young-looking Pasch (young-looking because she is indeed in her early twenties) took her teenaged son Nick to the ER after he injured his leg at school. But when the family got to the hospital, the doctor couldn’t believe Pasch was his mother. “POV, we’re at the ER, and the doctor didn’t believe I was the parent,” she captioned the post.

Pasch and her fiancé, Luke Faircloth, adopted the teen in 2022 after his parents tragically died two years apart. “Nick was already spending so much time with us, so it made sense that we would continue raising him,” Pasch told Today.

At the time the video was posted, the couple had Nick and 17-month-old baby Laith, who they lovingly call Bub.

@coffee4lifesage

He really thought i was lying😭

They now have their third child, a baby boy named Luca, making them a big happy family of five.

@coffee4lifesage

Mother’s Day fit check #momof3 #momsoftiktok #boymom #momlife #sunday #mothersday #boys #ootdinspo #family

After experiencing the ER doctor's confusion, Pasch said that people are often taken aback by her family when they are out in public. "Everybody gets a little confused because my fiancé and I are definitely younger to have a teenager," she said. "It can be very frustrating."

It may be hard for the young parents to be taken seriously, but their story has made a lot of people in a similar situation feel seen.

"Omg, I feel this. I took my son to the ER, and they asked for the guardian. Yes, hi, that's me," one mom wrote in the comments.

"Meee with my teenager at a parent-teacher conference. They think I’m her older sister and say we need to talk with your parents," another added.

Though the confusion is frustrating, it's not slowing Pasch and her family down. In a recent post, Pasch shared that she and her family had welcomed a fourth baby and were taking their followers on a trip to shop for the nursery.

@coffee4lifesage

Meet mousey #momof3 #momsoftiktok #boymom #momlife #funny #hubby #parents #pet #family


After a couple seconds, Pasch admits the new baby they're shopping for is actually their new hamster named Mousey. Judging by some of Pasch's other videos, though, they're trying for a fourth human baby and Pasch is hoping for a girl!

@coffee4lifesage

Happy 🐪 day #momof3 #momsoftiktok #boymom #momlife #parent #lifestyle #routine #wednesday #vlog #school



This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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The way some reporters are talking about Ukraine is revealing their implicit bias

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Protests against war in Ukraine in Moscow, February 24, Moscow. Tverskaya street

Unless you’ve been camping in the middle of nowhere without cell service, you'll know that Russia invaded Ukraine last week. The war in Ukraine has had the world’s attention since before Russian troops stepped foot on Ukrainian soil. It seems everyone has been glued to their televisions or other devices looking for updates on the conflict, but some people are getting a bit more than an update. Several journalists in European countries as well as the U.S. have made statements within their newscasts that have raised eyebrows and made people ask what exactly they mean.

Listening to reports on the refugee crisis resulting from the invasion is interesting to say the least. While it seems the majority of reporting is free from bias, others are steeped in so much bias that it goes beyond implicit to explicit in many ways. A reporter from CBS, Charlie D’Agata, had to make an apology due to his on-air remarks; he said “this is a relatively civilized, relatively European—I have to choose those words carefully, too—city, where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that would happen,” after making a comparison to Iraq and Afghanistan.


A French reporter Philippe Corbé, for BFM TV, a 24-hour French news network exclaimed, “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin; we’re talking about leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.” In an interview with the BBC, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine said “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair…being killed every day.” The comment went unchallenged by the anchors and was instead met with “I understand and respect the emotion.”

One would hope this would be the end of the comments by professionals showing their bias, but unfortunately, there are more examples. A journalist reporting for ITV from Poland said “Now the unthinkable has happened to them. And this is not a developing, third world nation. This is Europe!” Yet another reporter from the Telegraph expressed his sentiments, writing “They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations.”

Unfortunately the bizarre statements continue without so much as a follow-up question in many of these instances. Comments like these imply that war is to be expected in developing nations, or because the people experiencing war in Ukraine lack a certain look they should be spared. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by journalists of color, or by people of color absorbing the news. In fact, a political commentator for MSNBC, Mehdi Hasan, rebuked the biased reporting while on the air asking the question while reciting quotes from news clips, “‘Well-dressed people’ and ‘this is not the third world,’ they really mean white people, don’t they?"

The question feels like it had to be asked after all of these on-air snafus, but bias is so sneaky that these reporters likely didn’t realize how their words would be received. Heightened emotions from empathetic humans can not only cloud your judgment, but allow for more bias to seep in as you consider your own safety when seeing people that look like you being harmed. No one is saying these reporters can’t be empathetic, but it’s uncovering the areas that should be worked through so the automatic thought isn’t that this shouldn’t happen to them because they look like us, but that this shouldn’t happen to people, period.

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Starbucks' social media team sets an important tone addressing racial bias.

"We cannot deny that this is a race issue."

On April 12, two black men were arrested while waiting for their friend at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. Their crime? Waiting for a friend, apparently.

The incident, caught on film, shows the two men being placed in handcuffs by police officers while confused customers tried to ask what exactly they had done wrong. The incident sparked a lot of justifiable anger and resulted in an apology from both Starbucks, and the Philadelphia police chief, a few days later.

At NBC, writer Elon James White shared an "uncomfortable truth for white America" about the incident.

"While this incident went viral, it is only remarkable because of how unremarkable it actually is," he wrote, highlighting another Starbucks video from California showing a black man being denied access to a store's restroom, while a white man was allowed in without scrutiny.

People protesting at the Starbucks where the two men were arrested. Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images.

Starbucks announced plans to close all 8,000 of the company's corporate owned stores on May 29 for mandatory racial-bias training.

In a statement posted to Facebook, the company explained they were working with well-established civil rights advocates and anti-racism organizations to develop a curriculum for its 175,000 employees. The plan has gotten some majorly mixed reactions, ranging from people arguing that the Philadelphia location and police did nothing wrong, to those who think this is an important step in addressing the issue, to people who believe this is simply too little, too late.

All screenshots are from Starbucks/Facebook.

Whether the training itself will be considered a success remains to be seen. Still, the company's responses on social media have an important lesson for us all.

A lot of the time, when a company finds itself in the midst of a public relations disaster, their social media teams will come up with a few canned statements to respond to criticism on social media. Starbucks took a different approach — and has been offering personal replies to dozens of people.

Responding to criticism arguing that the Philadelphia incident was just a few bad apples, the company replied, "Because systemic racism and bias is bigger than one partner, one store or one company. We are shutting our stores for this training because we recognize that we have the responsibility to be part of the solution."

Others lamented the thought of going without their coffee for an afternoon, saying that the company's response was overblown. To that, Starbucks owned up to its less than stellar history, writing, "There are countless examples of implicit bias resulting in discrimination against people of color, both inside and outside our stores," and explaining that they have a responsibility to act.

"There was no reason for the police to be called to our Philadelphia store," they wrote to another commenter.

Another commenter used this as an opportunity to highlight legitimate grievances people and communities of color might have with law enforcement. The company responded by saying there are plans to meet with Philadelphia government and law enforcement officials to ensure this doesn't happen again. While it's not a national solution, it is something.

When someone pointed out that it shouldn't have taken a viral video for the company to get serious about fighting racial bias, Starbucks responded that the program rolling out May 29 will become part of new employee onboarding moving forward.

"Maybe train your employees on how to deal with loitering in general and not make it a color issue?" wrote another commenter. The company responded, "We cannot deny this is a race issue, which is why we are implementing this training."

Generally speaking, people should avoid calling the police in all but the most extreme cases, and Starbucks made its position on that clear in one of the responses, writing, "While there are situations where a call to police is justified (such as violence or aggressive behavior), this was not one of them."

The company was rightly wary of accepting praise for doing something it should have been doing all along. "We hope this proves to be an impactful step — one of many we know we have to take."

Yes, the manager who called the police has been fired.

Racism and unconscious biases are very real, and we'd all benefit from taking a step back and examining our own.

If one good thing comes out of what happened in Philadelphia, it's the chance for those who are white — and can't possibly know what it's like to be made to feel unwelcome in public spaces or to have our existence treated as automatically criminal on the basis of our skin color — to see the "uncomfortable truth" James mentioned in his article. This isn't a one-off incident, and it's not limited to just Starbucks. This is an everyday reality for many people of color. It's on all of us to push for a better world and to work to be our best selves.

What happened to those two men should never happen again. It almost certainly will, but it shouldn't. Take a page out of the Starbucks social media team's playbook and recognize this is a cultural problem that we have a responsibility to address — and then hold yourself accountable for your actions.

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9 simple ways to talk to kids about race that can help make the world kinder.

Administrators at Fox Chapel Middle School in Spring Hill, Florida, recently fired a teacher who gave her sixth graders an assignment asking them to consider how "comfortable" they would be in the company of various people. Some of the 41 scenarios identified these "others" in terms of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion.

For example:

"Your new roommate is a Palestinian and Muslim."

"A group of young black men are walking toward you on the street."

"The young man sitting next to you on the airplane is an Arab."

"Your new suite mates are Mexican."

"Your assigned lab partner is a fundamentalist Christian."

Many Fox Hill students and parents were upset. "They’re kids. Let kids be kids. Why are they asking kids these questions?" one mother to a seventh-grade student wondered. "I just don’t think it’s something that needs to be brought in school." Another parent said, "I just think that sometimes kids are just too young to start that at this age, and in school."

Such sentiments are familiar — and deeply misguided.

In the United States, a lot of us believe that children, especially white children, are racial innocents — completely naive, curiously fragile about the realities of race, or both.

Image via iStock.

The truth is that well before their teen years, the majority of children are well aware of prevailing biases, and most kids of all racial stripes have taken on a bunch of their own.

Researchers have been studying the development of racial and ethnic biases in children for a long time, and we know quite a bit. We know that within a few months of birth, babies prefer own-race faces, probably because most are surrounded by people who look like them. Sometime during the preschool years, however, this relatively innocent pull toward the familiar morphs into something else.

By age 5, black and Hispanic children show no preference toward their own group compared to whites. On the other hand, white kids remain strongly biased in favor of whiteness. By the start of kindergarten, "children begin to show many of the same implicit racial attitudes that adults in our culture hold. Children have already learned to associate some groups with higher status, or more positive value, than others."

So, in reference to the doubtlessly well-meaning mom quoted earlier, the crucial question isn’t "Why bring issues of racial, ethnic, religious, and other kinds of bias into our schools?" It’s "How do we constructively engage the harmful biases we know pervade our schools and just about everywhere else? And what can we do to shape our children’s racial attitudes before and as they emerge?"

In that regard, research and experience offer some promising guidance to parents, guardians, teachers, and all of us who care for or about children.

These guidelines were developed by members of the Embrace Race team.

1. Start early.

Let your child know that it’s perfectly OK to notice skin color and talk about race. Encourage them to ask questions, share observations and experiences, and be respectfully curious about race.

2. Realize you are a role model to your child.

What you say is important, but what you do — how diverse your circle of friends is, for example — will probably have an even bigger impact on your child. If they don't attend a diverse school, consider enrolling them in activities such as sports leagues that are diverse (if you’re able). Choose books, toys, and movies that include people of different races and ethnicities. Visit museums with exhibits about a range of cultures and religions.

3. Let your child see you face your own biases.

We’re less likely to pass on the biases we identify and work to overcome. Give your child an example of a bias — racial or otherwise — that you hold or have held. Share with your child things you do to confront and overcome that bias.

4. Know and love who you are.

Talk about the histories and experiences of the racial, ethnic, and cultural groups you and your family strongly identify with. Talk about their contributions and acknowledge the less flattering parts of those histories as well. Tell stories about the challenges your family  —  your child’s parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and great grandparents — have faced and overcome.

5. Develop racial cultural literacy by learning about and respecting others.

Study and talk about the histories and experiences of groups we call African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and whites, among others. Be sure your child understands that every racial and ethnic group includes people who believe different things and behave in different ways. There is more diversity within racial groups than across them.

6. Be honest with your child, in age-appropriate ways, about bigotry and oppression.

Children are amazing at noticing patterns, including racial patterns (who lives in their neighborhood versus their friends’ neighborhoods, for example). Help them make sense of those patterns, and recognize that bigotry and oppression are sometimes a big part of those explanations. Be sure your child knows that the struggle for racial fairness is still happening and that your family can take part in that struggle.

7. "Lift up the freedom fighters:" Tell stories of resistance and resilience.

Every big story of racial oppression is also a story about people fighting back and "speaking truth to power." Teach your child those parts of the story too. Include women, children, and young adults among the "freedom fighters" in the stories you tell.

8. Teach your children to be "upstanders" for racial justice.

Help your child understand what it means to be — and how to be — a change agent. Whenever possible, connect the conversations you're having to the change you and your child want to see and to ways to bring about that change.

9. Plan for a marathon, not a sprint.

Make race talks with your child routine. Race is a topic you should plan to revisit again and again in many different ways over time. It’s OK to say, "I’m not sure" or "Let’s come back to that later, OK?" But then be sure to come back to it.

This story first appeared on Embrace Race and is used here with permission.

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