+
Sign up for
The Upworthiest
Our top stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.
Community

Women on TikTok are standing in for adult children without supportive parents

Sometimes you just need a mom’s support.

parental estrangement; LGBTQ; mental health
RONDAE Productions from Pexels via Canva

Women on TikTok are standing in for adult children without supportive parents.

When people get married they generally imagine their family being present. Dads walking them down the aisle, moms crying in the front row, pictures of their parents beaming with pride in official wedding photos. You know, the whole shebang. Sadly, not everyone gets to experience that. But don't worry as social media is helping adult children have a stand-in parent there for their big day.

Several creators on TikTok have offered to be stand-in parents for people who were disowned by their parents or whose parents had passed away. Everyone's favorite mom Mama Tot recently stood in for one of her tater tots' weddings, making the drive from her home state of Alabama up to North Carolina.

Another creator on TikTok is currently making plans to attend her now social media "adopted" son's wedding after meeting them for the first time recently. Upworthy caught up with Rosie, whose TikTok handle is north_omaha_cat_lady, to find out what spurred such a kind gesture.

Rosie spends most of her time working with children, but when she's not working she's creating content on TikTok supporting marginalized communities. The creator said that she's had an uptick in people reaching out to her telling her that their parents don't approve of their "lifestyle choices" and have disowned them. She said, "I don’t have kids and I just don’t understand how anyone could throw away a child."

Rosie went on to explain that, "even Jeffery Dahmer's father came to every hearing so I don't understand this." Seeing someone hurting isn't something Rosie could just ignore, so when she came across Noah's video saying their mom wasn't going to come to their wedding, she stepped up. Noah posted a video explaining that their mom wasn't coming to their wedding as their mother would, "move mountains for everyone but me...the black sheep. The gay disgrace...."

Amazingly, Rosie reached out to Noah via video and said that she would happily stand-in as their mother for their wedding day. I'd say the rest was history, but the two hadn't met at the time of the offer. Turns out Noah and Rosie live in the same city and in just a few short videos and over a bite to eat, Noah gained a mom and Rosie gained a son.

In the comments of Noah's original video, there were multiple women offering to stand-in as their mother for the big day, including Mama Tot. But it was Rosie who was able to meet with Noah and their fiancee to discuss plans. Rosie told Upworthy that a wedding photographer from South Africa also reached out offering free services to the couple.

The internet always gets such a bad reputation for a lot of things that are wrong in the world, but this part of the internet is beautiful. People coming together to fill voids in other people's lives, all to make a stranger's special day better.

Rosie's one piece of advice she hopes people take away from this situation is, "Family is not defined by blood, family is who loves you. If your family disowns you, find a new family. There are people out there that do want to connect and do want to support people."

Take it from Rosie, people do want to support you. Sometimes the family we choose is the family that matters most.

From Your Site Articles
tiktok
Science

Astronaut shares the profound 'big lie' he realized after seeing the Earth from space

This change in perspective could change humanity.

via Rubén Moreno Montolíu/Flickr

Our home, from space.

Sixty-one years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to make it into space and probably the first to experience what scientists now call the "overview effect." This change occurs when people see the world from far above and notice that it’s a place where “borders are invisible, where racial, religious and economic strife are nowhere to be seen.”

The overview effect makes man’s squabbles with one another seem incredibly petty and presents the planet as it truly is, one interconnected organism.

Keep ReadingShow less
space
Joy

Couple says living on a floating cabin saves a ton of money and is great for their mental health

They saved $27,500 a year overall.

@keepingalfoatwiththejoneses/Instagram

Inexpensive and tranquil…what's not to like?

Saving money and living comfortably don’t always go hand in hand, but people do find ways to accomplish it. Sometimes all it takes is thinking a little outside the box—getting a job that allows you to travel the world or swapping out a traditional mortgage for more creative, less costly home ideas.

Take this couple in North Carolina, for example, who gave up living on land to move into a floating cabin and apparently saved $27,500 annually by doing so.

According to Good News Network, Sarah Spiro, 27, and her boyfriend, Brandon Jones, 40, break down the math: Their one-bedroom floating home, which they bought in March 2021, originally cost less than $30,000. The pair then spent two months and $23,000 renovating, for a total initial investment of less than $50,000. And now, they pay $2,500 a year to live on the lake. Yes, you read that right. $2,500 a year. They used to pay that much per month on their combined individual rents.

Obviously, it was a “no brainer,” said Spiro.

Keep ReadingShow less
interesting
Pop Culture

Airbnb host has world riveted over stolen painting that was replaced inside her own home

Who is this Airbnb Bandit?

@allbelongco/TikTok

How bizarre, how bizarre.

It should go without saying that it’s not cool to steal from your Airbnb. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still happen.

However, when one Airbnb host recently discovered a guest had—for some strange reason—stolen one of her paintings, then replaced it with a completely different painting, she decided to make the best out of a very uncool situation by sharing the story on TikTok.

As a result, viewers got to witness an continuously unraveling, truly bizarre modern-day art heist.

Okay, let’s get into it.

Keep ReadingShow less
tiktok
Pop Culture

Woman presents a gym mystery so gripping even celebrity author John Green wants it solved

"This is a great American drama.”

@katherout/TikTok

Just another unsolved mystery

Who doesn’t like a good mystery?

A video creator known as @katherout certainly does. At the gym Kath frequents, there’s a whiteboard with a revolving prompt with simple questions like “What are you listening to?” or “What city were you born in?” Gym goers then write their responses anonymously on the board.

Kath recently became enthralled—and tickled—by a person who somehow manage to write the word “monke” (as in the word describing a group of monkeys, apparently) on every single one of their answers.

Keep ReadingShow less
joy
Pop Culture

11-year-old is the world's youngest opera singer and can sing in eight different languages

She even sings in her sleep, according to her mom.

ABC4|YouTube

11-year-old girl is the youngest opera singer in the world.

The majority of 11-year-olds are perfectly content balancing the pre-teen life with Barbie dolls and tinted lipgloss. But one pre-teen is busy breaking records. Victory Brinker is an 11-year-old opera prodigy who was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's youngest opera singer in 2019 when she was almost 8 years old.

If you like opera—or even if you don't—hearing her vocal range of three octaves and voice control is impressive. When it comes to singing, control of your breath, pitch and tone can be difficult, especially when you're without years of classical training. Victory's skill is so impressive that when she appeared on America's Got Talent last year, she was given the "golden buzzer," which sends you straight to the finalist round in Hollywood.

Keep ReadingShow less
victory brinker
Family

Wife cooks nachos for 'picky' husband who refused to eat her salmon. But she has a point.

Should she be cooking two meals?

via TheMamaBrianna/TikTok

Brianna Greenfield makes nachos for her husband.

A viral video showing a woman preparing nachos for her "picky" spouse after he refused to eat the salmon dinner she cooked has sparked a contentious debate on TikTok. The video was shared on April 26 by Brianna Greenfield (@themamabrianna on TikTok) and has since earned over 2.5 million views.

Brianna is a mother of two who lives in Iowa.

The video starts with Brianna grating a massive hunk of cheese with a caption that reads: “My husband didn’t eat the dinner that I made…So let’s make him some nachos.”

“If I don’t feed him, he literally won’t eat,” she wrote. “This used to irritate me. Now I just blame his mother for never making him try salmon,” Greenfield wrote. The video features Meghan Trainor’s single “Mother” playing in the background.

Keep ReadingShow less
marriage
Trending Stories