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A safe, stable home can change lives for the better. Here’s how Habitat for Humanity wants to make that possible for everyone.
Better health, better jobs, and a brighter future all start with access to a safe, affordable home.
A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.
A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.
Volunteers raise a wall for the framework of a new home during the first day of building at Habitat for Humanity’s 2025 Carter Work Project. Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.
Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.
Marsha and her son pose for a photo while building their future home with Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity in Georgia. Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.
Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:- Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
- Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
- Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60+ countries where we work around the globe
- Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
- Shop or donate at your local Habitat ReStore
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.
Visit habitat.org/open-door to learn more and get involved today.
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People are bewildered to learn that half of Canada lives south of North Dakota
And more fun facts about the U.S.-Canada border.
“Canada is north of the United States” sounds like a basic fact that even elementary school children know to be true. But is it really? It turns out, the actual geographic reality isn’t quite that simple.
In fact, the Canadian-American border is all kinds of weird when you start examining it closely. The long part that looks like a straight line on the map is actually 900 zigzagging lines. Sometimes that “straight” line along the 49th parallel varies by hundreds of feet. There’s a disputed island along the border that both countries claim as their own.
But perhaps the most surprising factoid about the border is how much of it (and the Canadian population that lives above it) is actually south of the northernmost U.S. states.
If someone told you half of Canadians live south of North Dakota and Washington, it sounds wrong, right? But it’s right.
As a geomap.bytes TikTok video explains, about 70% of Canadians have historically lived south of the 49th parallel. But even more surprising is that around half of all Canadians live south of the southern borders of North Dakota and Washington. An even wilder fact is that the southernmost point in Canada sits south of some part of 27 U.S. states. It’s even slightly south of a small part of Northern California.
According to the video, more Americans than Canadians live north of Canada’s southernmost point, Middle Island in Lake Erie. How is that true? Let’s look at the math.
The population of Canada as of 2026 is approximately 40 million people, so 50% would be around 20 million. The U.S. population is a little over 342 million, so only about 6% of the U.S. population needs to live north of Middle Island for that math to work out. It does, as RealLifeLore explains:
Commenters (especially those who don’t live near that part of either country) are bewildered by these counterintuitive facts:
“Wow this is crazy: if you go south from Detroit you end up in Canada 🤯🤯🤯”
“Journey: ‘born and raised in South Detroit’ …so Canada.”
“I mean it’s like I knew this because I know where the border is yet I’ve never really thought about it or really registered it in my brain.”
“Geography can be really weird at times.”
Though it may sound strange at first, the way the populations pan out actually does make sense geographically. Canada may be enormous land-wise, but the most easily habitable parts, climate-wise, are in the southern part of the country. The major population centers of Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa are all in that triangular area between Michigan and New York. And the vast majority (90%, according to the CBC) of Canadians live within 100 miles (160 km) of the U.S. border.
More surprising facts about Canadian-American geography (from Across the Globe):
- The U.S.-Canada border is delineated by the longest clear-cut strip of land in the world.
- Point Roberts, Washington, is only accessible by car if you drive through part of Canada.
- The northernmost point in the contiguous U.S. is a bit of Minnesota jutting up into Canada. It was the result of a mapmaking mistake.
- The disputed island mentioned at the beginning of this article is home to nearly 10,000 puffins.
- The international border runs along the yellow centerline of a street that separates Derby Line, Vermont from Stanstead, Quebec.
- At the border crossing in Blaine, Washington, a 67-foot concrete arch straddles the border between the two countries. The words “Children of a common mother” mark the American side. “Brethren dwelling together in unity” is written on the Canadian side.
- The Great Lakes that sit between the two countries hold 21% of the world’s fresh water.
- Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes that lies entirely within the U.S.
Canada and the U.S. have been on friendly terms for the vast majority of their mutual history, which is quite remarkable considering the history of the world. There’s a lot to love about our northern neighbors and a lot to know about the crooked line that delineates the two nations.
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Why people have been accidentally giving Einstein credit for this powerful quote about fairytales
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
German physicist Albert Einstein was a genius. Many people view him as a wise authority on life advice and wisdom, and numerous Albert Einstein quotes are now famous.
One topic he shared his insights on is parenting. Einstein was a father of three, and he shared his thoughts on how to raise resilient kids.
But there is one parenting quote often attributed to Einstein that he did not say. The topic: how to make children more intelligent.
Einstein’s misattributed quote
The famous quote people assume Einstein said is:
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
However, the quote has not been verified as directly coming from Einstein. Folklorist Stephen Winick at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress explained the “folklore” behind the quote and how it’s been spread throughout the years.
The story about Einstein’s fairytale quote
According to Winick, Einstein may in fact have said the quote (or a version of it), but it was likely misconstrued throughout the years.
“As a result of this oral, print, and electronic transmission, the story of Einstein advocating fairy tales resembles other folk stories: it exists in multiple versions that vary in their details,” he explained.
He traced the history of Einstein’s quote using the Library of Congress resources, noting that the quote was first shared in print in 1958 by librarian Elizabeth Margulis in an article titled “Fairy Tales and More Fairy Tales” in the New Mexico Library Bulletin.
Margulis shared a story about an interaction she heard about between Einstein and another woman, where the woman asked him advice on how to help her son become a scientist:
“In Denver I heard a story about a woman who was friendly with the late Dr. Einstein, surely acknowledged as an outstanding ‘pure’ scientist. She wanted her child to become a scientist, too, and asked Dr. Einstein for his suggestions for the kind of reading the child might do in his school years to prepare him for this career. To her surprise Dr. Einstein recommended ‘fairy tales and more fairy tales.’ The mother protested this frivolity and asked for a serious answer, but Dr. Einstein persisted, adding that creative imagination is the essential element in the intellectual equipment of the true scientist, and that fairy tales are the childhood stimulus of this quality! (p.3)”
Modern-day misinformation on Einstein’s quote
The story shared by Margulis has been the crux of the quote’s origin, but it was not a firsthand account. Winick adds that her story was then re-shared by another famous children’s librarian in 1958, and another version of the story was given in a 1963 library publication by author Doris Gates, furthering its spread.
Winick cites an article by children’s librarian Jane Buel Bradley to explain:
“…Doris Gates, writer and children’s librarian, reports that Albert Einstein told an anxious mother who wanted to help her child become a scientist: ‘First, give him fairy tales; second, give him fairy tales, and third, give him fairy tales!’”
Since the 1960s, the quote has continued to take on a life of its own. However, evidence of Einstein ever saying it has yet to be confirmed.
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She emailed her boss to request time off. The ‘gibberish’ she wrote saved her life.
“Emails I had sent to my work were gibberish, so much so that a close colleague escalated to my boss, as it frightened him.” The diagnosis that followed saved her life.
When Becca Valle woke up with chronic headaches in 2021, she did what most people do. She went to her general practitioner, got a diagnosis (migraines, probably sinus-related), took the prescribed medication, and hoped things would get better. According to PEOPLE, the then-37-year-old tried everything to manage the pain, from different medications to morning walks, but nothing worked.
After three weeks of worsening symptoms, Valle started vomiting from the pain one afternoon and immediately called her boyfriend to take her to the emergency room. Before heading out, she pulled up her email to let her boss know she needed the day off.
What she typed wasn’t a day-off request. It was gibberish.
Woman writes an email at her computer. Photo credit: Canva “Emails I had sent to my work letting them know I was signing off for the day were gibberish, so much so that a close colleague escalated to my boss, as it frightened him,” Valle recalled. By the time she was in the ER, she was texting similar incomprehensible messages to her partner, who wasn’t allowed in with her due to COVID restrictions.
The scan results showed blood in her brain. Doctors performed an emergency craniotomy, a surgery that involves removing part of the skull to access the brain. What they found required a second emergency craniotomy. Valle had glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer.
The diagnosis finally explained the “chronic migraines” that had been plaguing her for weeks. But it also put her on a path she never expected to navigate. CBS News reported that Valle immediately told her doctors she wanted to pursue every possible trial and treatment option available to her.
After consulting with her radiologist and oncologist, she connected with Dr. Graeme Woodworth, Chief of Neurosurgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center, whose clinical trials involved drug therapies administered by temporarily opening the blood-brain barrier using ultrasound treatment.
Now 42, Valle describes her diagnosis journey as “interesting” and says she’s been cancer-free for four years. She rang the “cancer is clear” bell back in 2022, though her doctors have warned that glioblastoma can recur.
Still, she’s living her life fully and has advice for anyone facing a serious medical diagnosis: “As much as you can, take control of your journey. Talk to doctors and others who have gone through the same.”
That gibberish email, the one that scared her colleague enough to escalate it up the chain, turned out to be the alarm bell that got her into the ER in time. Sometimes the things that frighten us most are exactly what we need to pay attention to.
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American working in Finland made videos comparing work cultures. The differences are wild.
From 4:30 AM wake-ups to getting tucked in by Jeff Bezos at 1 AM, this parody of the American workday hits way too close to home
Finland gets a lot of attention for its approach to work-life balance, from four-day workweek experiments to generous parental leave policies. This has created some pretty entertaining stereotypes about what working in Finland must be like. Dan Toomey, an American who works for Morning Brew in Finland, decided to lean all the way into those stereotypes with a pair of TikTok videos that have people laughing at how painfully accurate they are.
In the first video, Toomey shows what Americans think the average Finnish workday looks like. It starts with him stepping out of his morning sauna, followed by hot chocolate hand-delivered by his company.
Breakfast? Muesli and pine needles, naturally.
Around 11 AM, he finally sits down to work. “Since we all work at Spotify,” he explains, he begins his day by listening to ambient synth music while wrapped in a felt blanket. His daily $5,000 bonus arrives in the mail. He has a casual chat about Eurovision with Finland’s 36-year-old Prime Minister. Lunch is cold herring and more pine needles, followed by a walk through Narnia. He wraps up at 3:30 PM after his first and only meeting of the day, just in time for his second bonus to arrive.
The American workday video, on the other hand, looks like something from a particularly dark comedy sketch.
It begins at 4:30 AM on a Sunday. The American worker “sprints out of bed in record time,” recites the pledge of allegiance, and prepares breakfast: 12 eggs and a gallon of whole milk, consumed while staring at his phone. He writes emails for three hours straight before his first meeting, where everyone “shares big numbers, then makes a million dollars” as cash literally rains down on him.
Lunch is “every fast food there is,” eaten quickly before he squats at his desk to memorize a PowerPoint presentation. The workday finally ends at 1 AM when he places a spreadsheet under his pillow and gets tucked into bed by Jeff Bezos himself.
The videos are obviously satirical, but they hit a nerve because they’re rooted in real cultural differences. Finland genuinely does have policies that prioritize employee well-being in ways that seem almost fictional to American workers. Meanwhile, American hustle culture has created an environment where working yourself to exhaustion is often worn as a badge of honor.
Both videos have been praised not just for their humor, but for their critique of what we’ve normalized in our work cultures. As conversations about sustainable work practices continue, maybe the real question isn’t whether the stereotypes are accurate. It’s which version of the workday we actually want to be living.
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Woman with an unfortunate name has a hilarious warning for all parents-to-be
Her name is Samantha Hart. Her professional email address is the problem.
The recent trend of parents going out of their way to give their children unique names has brought up a lot of discussion on social media. Some of these names sound cute when a child is 5 years old. But will Caeleigh, Zoomer or Rhyedyr look like a serious adult on a job application in a few years?
A recent viral video on TikTok is a unique twist on the current discussion surrounding names. Samantha Hart has a name that doesn’t seem like it would draw any negative attention in professional circles. However, her parents didn’t consider email conventions when they named her back in the late ‘90s when email was new.
Her name was fine, but her email was not
“My name is Samantha Hart,” she said. “Most companies use the email designation of first initial, last name, meaning my email would be ‘shart.’” For the uninitiated, a “shart” is an unintentional release when one thinks they only have gas. Yikes.
The issue arose because Samantha has had two “professional” jobs in the past in which her name has been an issue. So, as she began a third job, she wondered how to approach the situation with a new employer.
“At every single workplace, I have received an email from HR the week before I start letting me know that my name does not exactly fit the company email structure as they would intend and [asked] would I mind if they gave me a different structure for my email,” Hart said.
So she asked her followers on TikTok if she should just “reach out, right off the bat” to her employer and ask for “something else” or wait for HR to react to her email situation. But most of the responses were from people who have been in the same embarrassing situation as Samantha and wished their parents had thought twice before naming them.
She was definitely not alone in this
“Clittmann has entered the chat. Have been dealing with this since college,” Chris.Littmann responded.
“As Swallo, I feel your pain,” Samantha Wallo replied.
“My name is Sue Hartlove so my work emails are always shartlove,” Sue added.
“I went to college w Tiffany Estes,” Abby1233213 wrote.
“Rkelley has entered the chat,” Rach commented.
“Worked with a guy named Sam Adcock,” Lori added.
“My last name is Hartstein, and my mom’s personal email is ‘shartstein.’ People literally call her shart-stein,” Lyss wrote.
“I used to work with a BAllsman,” JenniferKerastas added.
“I worked with a Patrick Ecker at a previous job…” NoName wrote.
“Our high school used last name, first two letters of first name. My friend’s email ended up being ‘mountme,’” Averageldeal commented.
Andy Marks won the comment section with: “Always best to initiate the shart convo… wait too long and it tends to come out at the least opportune moment.”
Woman types on her phone. Photo credit: Canva What the IT experts had to say
While the comments were dominated by people sharing their unfortunate email addresses, a few people in the IT field shared their advice for how Samantha should approach her new employer with her email issue. Most agreed that she should address the issue before it becomes a larger problem.
“As someone in IT—please reach out. When we have to rename a bunch of logins after someone starts it can cause headaches for everyone (inc you!),” Kelsey Lane wrote.
Expecting parents, please take notes.
As a postscript, Hart later told BuzzFeed that she was getting married and would be taking her new husband’s last name. “I actually will be sad when I change my last name,” she said. “It’s such an iconic thing, and it’s something that I’ve turned into a kind of lore for myself.”
This article originally appeared three years ago.
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She refused to ‘sacrifice’ her upgraded seat so a mom could sit next to her preteen kids
Here’s why parents applauded her for it.
If you’ve traveled on an airplane in the last several years, you know it’s much cheaper to choose the basic seats in the main cabin. There’s nothing inherently different about these particular seats, other than the fact that it will be randomly selected by the airline. If you’re traveling alone, that’s really not a bad deal, but if you’re traveling with a party that you’d like to keep together, like your children, the risk gets to be a little higher. One mom traveling with an 11 and 15-year old took the risk and banked on a stranger accommodating…that’s not quite how it played out.
Her seat was taken, on purpose
Tammy Nelson did a double take at her ticket after seeing the mom in her window seat. Of course, people accidentally sit in the wrong seats on planes all the time. However, Nelson quickly realized that this was no accident. This mom boarded the plane with her older children and had taken it upon herself to sit in the same row as her children, essentially commandeering a stranger’s seat. Nelson assumed it was a mistake and informed the woman that the seat was in fact hers but the response she received was surprising.
“She said, ‘Oh, you want to sit here?’,” Nelson told Good Morning America. “She said, ‘Oh, well I just thought I could switch with you because these are my kids.’”
That’s an interesting assumption considering seats are assigned and many people, like Nelson, pay extra to have the seat they prefer. Now, there’s no telling if funds were tight and this was an unplanned trip for the mom and kids which caused her to buy the more budget friendly tickets or if she was simply being frugal and was banking on the kindness of a stranger.
Either way, Nelson specifically paid for a window seat due to motion sickness and though she paid extra, she was willing to sit in the other row if that seat was also a window seat. But it turns out, it was a middle seat.
Surely there’s someone out there that loves the middle seat. Maybe a cold natured person that enjoys the body heat of two strangers sitting uncomfortably close. Or perhaps someone that doesn’t mind accidentally sleeping on an unsuspecting passenger’s shoulder. But that person wasn’t Nelson, so when the middle seat was offered in exchange for her bought and paid for window seat, she politely but firmly declined.
The internet had a lot to say
Her refusal to give in to the mom’s seemingly entitled request for Nelson’s seat has resulted in parents and child-free people cheering her on after she posted the details on her TikTok page, MyCONQUERing, which quickly racked over 3.4 million views.
“Nope. If it’s not an upgrade it’s a sacrifice,” a commenter wrote.
“You did the RIGHT thing. Folks need to plan their travel together. Lack of planning on their part does not constitute an inconvenience on yours,” one person said.
“I have 3 kids and have sat in different rows when they were passed toddler age. I agree, book your flight earlier,” another said.
“You were right. As a woman with 3 children, I always pay extra so we’re sat together,” another mom said.
This story actually changed things
Luckily, there’s been enough incidences like this to prompt actual change. More airlines are guaranteeing free family seating for parents with children under a certain age (not that that does much more the woman in this story, but still). The U.S. Department of Transportation proposed a rule under the Biden administration requiring airlines to provide fee-free family seating, but as of 2026 its future under the Trump administration remains uncertain. Five of the 10 largest airlines currently guarantee free family seating voluntarily.
This article originally appeared three years ago. It has since been updated.
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“You deserve better”: Mom leaves her husband after he refuses to clean up for 6 days straight
That’s the sound of women everywhere applauding.
Household inequity is getting better in some households. In others, it’s completely out of control. A viral TikTok video highlights an extreme version of inequality that many wives and mothers in heterosexual relationships face. However, the mom in this story hit her limit and won’t deal with it anymore. Lynalice Bandy, who goes by @5kids5catssomedogstoo on TikTok, posted a video that showed her home looking like a disaster after she worked six 10-hour days straight while her husband did nothing to help.
Her time-lapse video shows every room in the house completely trashed, with toys, food, and laundry scattered everywhere. “Shampoo on the carpets in the girls’ room, nail polish all over nugget covers, hair, and carpet. Scissors were used to cut hair, the down comforter, the mattress cover, and two nugget covers,” wrote the mom. “I’ve worked six, ten-hour days in a row with only one day off being a sick day,” she captioned the video. “I’d like to pretend I’m not the only person who cleans here, but as you can see…These rooms don’t get much attention when I’m not here.”
She says her husband’s excuse was that he was focused on doing his schoolwork and couldn’t pay attention to the kids. “Now, that school is out for a break, he doesn’t have that excuse anymore,” Bandy says, noting that all of his attention has been focused on “the four vehicles in our driveway that he wants to work on continuously.”
She packed up and didn’t look back
In a follow-up video, Bandy announced that she left her husband after the debacle.
The original video received over 17,000 comments, many of which were from supportive women. “You deserve much better, and he deserves to be alone. Much love to you from someone that left that life behind almost 20 yrs ago. You’ll get here, too,” Angela LaRoche wrote.
“Ma’am, you are nothing short of amazing! Hang in there!” Japanese with Jenny wrote. “That home is beautiful because of YOU,” Hillary added. “You put in so much work, and it is not unseen by me and so many others. But, you DO deserve better. Proud of you.”
Even though Bandy’s experience with her husband is an extreme case of a couple whose domestic duties are way out of balance, it points to a problem that plagues many households. Even though families are becoming more equal, women still do significantly more housework than men.
The numbers tell an even bigger story
A study utilizing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey found that women 15 years and older spend 5.7 hours daily doing housework and looking after kids and elders. Men in the same age group do an average of 3.6 hours of daily domestic work. That’s a 37% difference in time spent on household responsibilities.
Further, women who work an average of 35 hours a week spend 4.9 hours a day on household chores and child care, while men who work the same amount spend an average of 3.8 hours.
The comments show that many women are frustrated with their husbands for not doing their fair share. Hopefully, this video will encourage more people to speak out about domestic inequality and for more men to step up and do their part.
Here is where she is now
Nearly two years after Lynalice left her husband, she and her five children are living together in a new home. Her recent videos show that she’s having difficulty keeping it clean because she’s been working 60-plus hours a week and suffers from ADHD. Being the single mother of five has to be tough, so she has developed a new motto: “Progress, not perfection.” In November 2024, she shared a video of her and her family getting things together in their new home.
This article originally appeared three years ago. It has been updated.
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His mother gave him the ‘husbands in training’ course every parent should give their kids
This is exactly the kind of parenting more people wish they had received.
Even though the marriage rate in the United States is on a steep decline, chances are that the majority of kids growing up today will get married at some point in their lives. If current trends continue, roughly 40% of those marriages will end in divorce, according to current research.
Research published in the Couple and Family Psychology journal found that the top five reasons for divorce are a lack of commitment, infidelity, too much conflict, getting married young, and financial problems.
Wouldn’t it be great if we were taught from a young age how to be a good spouse so we could avoid these pitfalls? Many of them are totally solvable with good communication and commitment from both parties. But in American culture, most of us aren’t taught the specifics of how to have a happy and healthy marriage. Most of us tend to pick things up from watching the married people in our orbit, most likely our parents.
No comment on how that’s going.
The other way we learn is by making the mistakes ourselves. By then, it’s usually too late. And the data around second and third marriages isn’t very promising when you dig into it.
One mom decided to do something about it
Artist Doug Weaver had a much different upbringing. His mother, Mickey, made a curriculum for him and his two older brothers when they were kids to help them be great husbands when they got married.
You’ve heard of things like “Mom-Son Date Night” (some dads and daughters do it, too) where mothers will take their boys out on a “date” so they can learn basic chivalry and manners?
Weaver’s training was like that on steroids.
“When I was a kid, my mom did this thing for me and my two older brothers called ‘Husbands in Training,’” he explained in a TikTok video that has more than 5.9 million views. “It was a full, multiple-level curriculum on how to be a better husband.”
Weaver says the training covered topics from chivalry to eating to a rather uncomfortable discussion on “the ethics of the porn industry.” His mother also stressed the importance of listening to women and identifying when another man may be giving them trouble.
“There was a lot of really good stuff in that curriculum,” Doug said. “There were things like what to do if your spouse says something and the information they give is wrong. How to handle it if they say something wrong in public versus in private, when it is appropriate to correct them and when it isn’t.”
Weaver’s mother was also way ahead of her time because she made a big deal about teaching her sons the importance of consent. “We talked about consent, we talked about the basics of respecting and honoring women and listening to women, and all of the things that really just make you a decent human being,” Doug explained.
A young Doug must have absolutely hated sitting through conversations with his mom about porn, sex, and consent… but as a grown man, he looks back on the lessons fondly.
The curriculum was so good, dad enrolled too
The lessons were so powerful that even Weaver’s father decided to take the course. “A lot of the things that we were learning from my mom were things that he was never taught growing up,” Weaver said. “So, he decided he also wanted to take ‘Husbands in Training.’”
It brings to mind pre-marriage counseling or couples therapy. Programs are often offered (or mandated) through churches, so they aren’t usually a great fit for the non-religious. And couples without active “problems” may resist the idea of attending couples therapy due to the stubborn stigma around it.
The course officially ended when Weaver and his brothers got married. “My mom even made certificates of completion that she signed and gave to each of us on our wedding day,” he shared in his TikTok clip.
However, the video Weaver shared was so popular on TikTok that he’s making his mother’s course available to the general public. “After posting about ‘Husbands in Training’ on TikTok, the TT community really wants my mom to produce content about raising boys to be good men,” he wrote on a GoFundMe fundraising campaign in 2022.
Now the lessons are available to everyone
The overwhelming response to Weaver’s TikTok has inspired a YouTube channel to spread Mickey’s lessons far and wide. But it has also made a lot of people realize that teaching people how to be great spouses is a lifelong journey and should be a major part of child-rearing. Learning how to be a good spouse shouldn’t just be something we pick up by accident.
As for Doug Weaver, his training appears to be paying off in the form of a happy marriage. He has since said he plans to adapt the curriculum for his own children, with a particular focus on consent and healthy conflict resolution.
This article originally appeared four years ago. It has been updated.
Family
Why people have been accidentally giving Einstein credit for this powerful quote about fairytales
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