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Want to truly make every day Mother's Day? Give her a clean house and some time alone.

Want to truly make every day Mother's Day? Give her a clean house and some time alone.

Instead of thinking about what to give a mom in your life, think about what you could take away.

Pssst. I've got a Mother's Day secret. Moms don't really need a brunch or flowers, as lovely as those things are. What most moms I know really want are the things she rarely gets—a clean house, and time that belongs to her and her alone.

Don't get me wrong. Moms enjoy spending quality time with their kids. But I know few moms who would say they don't get enough time with their children. Our kid cups are full to overflowing most days. It's quality time with ourselvesthat we crave, but rarely get.


This is why we lock ourselves in the bathroom on occasion. This is why we sit for a few extra minutes in the car after we park in the driveway. This is why we slowly walk every aisle of Target when we're out for a "quick errand."

We want time to read a book uninterrupted. We want time to slowly drink a cup of coffee and stare out the window. We want time to sit in silence of an empty house and just be without having to think about someone else's needs for a while.

We love our families, but the constant flow of our energy to our loved ones takes its toll.

Moms nurture. We teach. We comfort. We worry. We give ourselves to our children and partners, and most of the time we are happy to do so. It's a role we chose to take on (most of us, anyway) and we wouldn't trade being a mom for anything in the world.

But that doesn't mean we don't need breaks sometimes.

A poll conducted by TVBed.com and reported by the Daily Mail found that out of 2000 moms surveyed, three quarters felt like they live their lives entirely for other people. Many moms reported that they go weeks at a time without any "me time," and on average, mothers get a mere 17 minutes a day to themselves. That's not healthy for anyone.

One of the best things someone can do for a mom who's in the thick of motherhood is take her kids for a while. Make sure she knows they are safe and cared for and having a good time, and tell her to go take a few hours for herself. It doesn't matter what she chooses to do with that time—it's hers.

I guarantee she'll think it's one of the best gifts she's ever gotten.

Studies show that women still take on the lion's share of housework. That takes its toll too.

While gender roles aren't nearly as defined as they used to be, much of the work of childrearing and housekeeping still falls on women. Some of that is natural—babies and toddlers in particular tend to gravitate towards their first source of nourishment and nurturing—but some is leftover from days past when a woman's place was in the home.

And the housework bit gets really old after a few years. When you live with children, there is constant picking up, constant wiping up, constant sweeping up. It never ends. Just to have a decently tidy house requires a consistent, diligent effort to stay on top of the perpetual messiness of it all.

And that's just living with children. One might assume that living with a partner would make housework easier, as you can split the duties. But research shows that women with husbands actually do more housework than single moms do. Unless you live with a man who truly pulls his weight, having a partner actually makes housework worse.

I fortunately married a man who is awesome about splitting household duties, but even at that, our house is rarely clean for longer than a few hours. If someone gifted me few hours of professional house cleaning, I'd be thrilled. Heck, if someone just offered to fold my laundry for a few days, I'd be eternally grateful. Taking away the burden of constant housework, even just for a little while, is a wonderful gift.

I'm telling you, a clean house and time alone. That's what most moms really want anyway.

The gaze of the approving Boomer.

Over the past few years, Baby Boomers (1946 to 1964) have been getting a lot of grief from the generations that came after them, Gen X (1965 to 1980), Millenials (1981 to 1996), and now, Gen Z (1997 to 2012). Their grievances include environmental destruction, wealth hoarding, political polarization, and being judgemental when they don’t understand how hard it is for younger people to make it in America these days.

Every Baby Boomer is different, so it's wrong to paint them all with a broad brush. But it’s undeniable that each generation shares common values, and some are bound to come into conflict.

However, life in 2023 isn’t without its annoyances. Many that came about after the technological revolution put a phone in everyone’s hands and brought a whole new host of problems. Add the younger generations' hands-on approach to child rearing and penchant for outrage, and a lot of moden life has become insufferanble.

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Klein Kwagga understood the assignment at his sister's concert.

Some kids are too shy to ever want to get on a stage, some will spend most of a performance staring awkwardly at their shoes, and some kids love the opportunity to show off what they've practiced in front of an audience.

And then there are the kids were simply born for the spotlight. You know them when you see them.

When Dirkco Jansen van Nieuwenhuizen hopped on stage with all of the other brothers and sisters of the dance students at René’s Art of Dance in South Africa, no one expected a viral sensation. According to Capetown Etc, it was the school's year-end concert, and siblings were invited to come up and dance to Bernice West’s Lyfie—a popular song in Afrikaans. And Dirkco, who goes by Klein Kwagga, took the assignment and ran with it.

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Prepare to get Thatcherized.

It seems that Adele is going viral once again.

Perhaps you’ve seen the image in question previously (it seems to make the rounds every couple of years). But in case you missed it—it’s Adele’s face. Normal, just upside down.

Only it’s not normal. In fact, when you turn Adele’s face right side up, what you notice is that her eyes and mouth were actually right-side up THE ENTIRE TIME, even though the entire head was upside down. So when you turn the head right side up, the eyes and mouth are now UPSIDE-DOWN—and you can’t unsee it. Do you feel like you're Alice in Wonderland yet?

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

People share the most practical ways to support new parents

There's a lot of preparation that goes into having a child well before they're even born. First there are the physical changes your body makes to clear up some space for a tiny human roughly the size of a watermelon. Then there's preparing the nursery, buying lots of extremely small clothes, diapers and an expected understanding that while sleep may be your friend, you won't be getting any of it for about a year.

Lots of people give plenty of advice to help you cope in the early days but after the baby arrives, the focus shifts to solely the baby. It's obviously not a deliberate shift. Babies are just more shiny and new that the parents. But not everyone forgets about the parents once baby makes their grand entrance–some go out of their way to make sure the parents feel supported.

Upworthy asked its audience, "what was the best non-baby related gift you received as a new parent," and the answers were a masterclass on how to care for new parents.

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A mom seeks doctor's help for postpartum depression and instead gets a visit from the cops

Too many women lose out on much needed support because of unwarranted stigma.

Canva

Postpartum depression is very common, and treatable.

Jessica Porten recently visited her doctor four months after giving birth to her daughter, Kira. She wasn't feeling quite like herself.

She had been dealing with overwhelming sadness and fits of anger, which she knew was likely stemming from a case of postpartum depression.

In a Facebook post, Porten recounts the story of that appointment.

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Identity

Formerly enslaved man's response to his 'master' wanting him back is a literary masterpiece

"I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters."

A photo of Jordan Anderson.

In 1825, at the approximate age of 8, Jordan Anderson (sometimes spelled "Jordon") was sold into slavery and would live as a servant of the Anderson family for 39 years. In 1864, the Union Army camped out on the Anderson plantation and he and his wife, Amanda, were liberated. The couple eventually made it safely to Dayton, Ohio, where, in July 1865, Jordan received a letter from his former owner, Colonel P.H. Anderson. The letter kindly asked Jordan to return to work on the plantation because it had fallen into disarray during the war.

On Aug. 7, 1865, Jordan dictated his response through his new boss, Valentine Winters, and it was published in the Cincinnati Commercial. The letter, entitled "Letter from a Freedman to His Old Master," was not only hilarious, but it showed compassion, defiance, and dignity. That year, the letter would be republished in theNew York Daily Tribune and Lydia Marie Child's "The Freedman's Book."

The letter mentions a "Miss Mary" (Col. Anderson's Wife), "Martha" (Col. Anderson's daughter), Henry (most likely Col. Anderson's son), and George Carter (a local carpenter).

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

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