Toxic Cooking Show
Misogyny, $800 first dates, simps, and high-value women: Social media has been busy cooking up and feeding us an addictive but toxic slurry of trends over the past few years. Here at The Toxic Cooking Show we're two friends dedicated to breaking down these trends, terms, and taunts into their simplest ingredients to understand where they came from and how they affect our lives. Join us each week as we ponder and discuss charged topics like personal responsibility and "not all men" before placing them on our magical Scale O' ToxicityAny comments or topics you want to hear about write to us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com
Toxic Cooking Show
Hey There Mama Bears! Welcome to the Mamasphere
What if the digital age has reshaped motherhood in ways we never imagined? Join us on the Toxic Cooking Show as Lindsay McClain and Christopher Patchet, LCSW, navigate the intricacies of the "mama sphere"—an online universe where mothers share the joys and challenges of parenting. Trace the evolution from the humble beginnings of mommy blogs in the early 2000s to today's vibrant platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Amidst our exploration, relish the humor of two non-parents talking about parenting, as we scratch the surface of the commercial elements that have seeped into this space.
Ever wondered how mothers are turning their parenting experiences into income streams? Our discussion takes a turn into the world of momfluencers, where traditional in-person connections have transformed into dynamic digital interactions. Discover how this shift has allowed mothers to monetize their online presence through blogs, social media, and partnerships, while also facing ethical dilemmas and economic pressures, especially common in the U.S. We examine how this new landscape has given rise to communities of mothers who share and support each other in this virtual realm.
But wait—what about the risks of sharing your family life online? In a world where privacy is often sacrificed for likes and follows, we look at the potential dangers of oversharing, particularly when it comes to children. Explore the unintended consequences that can arise, from privacy invasions to the phenomenon of internet sleuths piecing together your life from online clues. As we wrap up this episode, gear up for next week's installment that promises to delve into the more controversial and legal challenges within the mama sphere. Join us for a thought-provoking and entertaining conversation!
Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people into their simplest ingredients. I'm your host for this week, lindsay McLean, and with me is Christopher Patchett. Lcsw, you don't want to add the I in there, or if you're in West Virginia, licsw, I mean, I really every time we do this, I'm reminded that I need letters after my name.
Speaker 2:It's very unfair.
Speaker 1:Lindsay McLean-o-r-k. Hey, hey, so rude, just for that. Today we're talking about something that you have, I sure, a lot of knowledge of.
Speaker 2:Oh boy.
Speaker 1:Motherhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, I guess, to our EP.
Speaker 1:Your mom.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, oh. So the person giving the motherhood, yeah. Yeah, I would be the mom to to miss molly you want to.
Speaker 1:You sure you want to stick with that statement let's see where this goes first I don't think you do spoiler, so today we are talking about the mama sphere okay. It is what it kind of sounds like which is all things mother, Specifically on the internet. So mommy blogs, mommy vlogs, momfluencers, all of that, the internet of moms if you will Wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 2:We actually call them momfluencers.
Speaker 1:Yes. Ah, let's say, let's say yeah, the fact that mamasphere, mommy blog and momfluencer are all like words, like that's the, they're now things oh god, okay, I'm not liking already. So this is going to be a two-part episode. I'll go ahead and put that out front, because we're going to be talking about kind of the basis for stuff, and then next week we get into the nitty-gritty people go to jail, part of things.
Speaker 2:Ooh, this just got interesting. Yeah, oh, this just got interesting, yeah.
Speaker 1:So backing up before we were going to jail for child abuse spoiler, in the early 2000s you see the first mommy blogs start to appear. So Heather Armstrong created her blog Deuce, I believe it's called, in 2001. Melinda Roberts had a blog called the mommy blog in 2002. These are the two that are like kind of cited as some of the first blogs like mommy blogs, which makes sense because this was the age of blogging, like early 2000s.
Speaker 2:This was still fun then I, I was gonna say like I I can't remember last time that I actually looked at a blog same it's been a hot minute, but these were super, super popular like I mean just blogs in general back in the days.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you remember being a fellow old person, I'm putting you in the same boat as me, okay, but like, this was the way that you did stuff. You know you had your blog and you talked about whatever it was. So in this case, they were talking about motherhood, children, all of that shit, and it was a place for moms to kind of like talk about their experiences and what they did, very unfiltered. It was just like moms sharing about things like your activities I did with my kids. It's summer. What did we do this week? Well, you know, I gave them whatever, and you know here here's some photos of them, you know, using the chalk and water to like draw on our sidewalk or something, and this kept them occupied for hours. Or here's some photos of this whatever thing I built for them to play with. That was the type of stuff you were seeing or them talking about. You know the struggles that they were going through of various things with their children. You know nice stuff like that okay, okay, this.
Speaker 2:This is starting off good, but I'm feeling that this is probably gonna churn as something on the toxic cooking show.
Speaker 1:No, so you know, as the internet has expanded, so too has the mama sphere. You went from the mommy blogs to the mommy vlogs, but then we moved on to things like instagram, tiktok, facebook kind of kind of is in there somewhere Because there's a lot to talk about when it comes to motherhood. I'd like to apologize to all of the people who are paying to run ads to me right now, thinking that I'm pregnant because Google thinks I'm pregnant. Google also thinks I'm about to monetize that little crotch goblin Some of the searches I were trying to do for this.
Speaker 1:So, of course, when you have kids, especially at the very beginning, especially if this is your first child, you're going to be buying all sorts of stuff, and I would like to note I'm fully aware of the ironies situation that we have a single man and myself talking about motherhood here. Neither of us are mothers. In case anyone was wondering mother to fish, you know, mother to a cat, dad to a dog, but like, not the two-legged type. But trust me, you can believe everything we say we've learned from trust me bro.
Speaker 2:University can believe everything we say. We've learned from trust me bro, university.
Speaker 1:Exactly, don't ask questions, but you've got stuff like baby monitors, clothing, nursing bras, cribs, changing tables, wipes, diaper creams, strollers, diapers, car seats, formulas, I mean the list just goes on and on and that's just for, like the baby when it, when it comes along, and some of these are pretty like big ticket items. Like strollers if you want a nice stroller that can fold up or do stuff that can run you like 500 plus dollars, damn, yeah. Same thing for car seats, like if you want one that you know you can swivel around, especially one that you could like it has a base that you can leave on the car and you can like unhook it there again.
Speaker 2:that is a couple hundred dollars just for that thing see now, right off the top of my head, like you know, like, and we have talked about, like, motherhood, like you know, in social work classes and you know the the biggest thing about it all is that and I might be cutting into your thing here- but, like, but like okay. So if I'm spending five hundred dollars on something that motherfucker better last me at least a good like five, six years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Like if you're spending that much money, you want to make sure that this thing is like the thing that you want, cause you don't want to spend $500 on a stroller that's just going to break after six months, or that you can't use with like multiple kids, or that, you know, in the end it doesn't actually fold the way you need it to fold, and so you can't make it smaller and so you can't, like, put it in store, it in places.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of money to then be like whoops, well, now we still need to buy this other one well, it's not only that, but also is the fact that, uh, you know, kiddos outgrows a shoulder like two and a half years, yeah, there are limits on a lot of these, where it's like this is stuff that it's not like a one and done, you know, especially if you're having multiple kids.
Speaker 1:it's the type of thing that if you have the storage space you could put it away and use it later, but the car seat that you get for tiny baby is not going to fit a larger kid necessarily.
Speaker 2:And I mean a lot of times like people don't, you know, plan for kids, so it's like, okay, done with this baby stroller, like you know, like let me give it to a friend or something like that, uh, only to find out like three or four years later that oh shit, um yeah, we actually had to have another one whoopsies but yeah, you know, and then also baby clothes and shit like that, like I mean, kids are you know?
Speaker 2:now you're buying a shit ton of like you know clothes. Like every couple months, uh, you're having like a whole new set of clothes yep, you've got new clothes for the child as they're growing.
Speaker 1:You've got new clothes because the season changes. If you want to be gross and have like super, super gendered clothing for your kid size, but like you had a girl at first and now you're having a voice, now you have to get like a whole new wardrobe for them, or vice versa. Or styles have changed. There's even if you're not doing that, there's just there's so much money that goes into keeping children alive and, like you know, raising them to the expectations that we have nowadays in 2024. It's a lot and there's all the stuff that's being thrown at you within a very short window of time. And that's just the stuff. Then we get into, like the methods and the culture and all of that you know. Are you going to do baby led weaning? Are you using cloth or disposable diapers? I know this means literally nothing. I can see from your face.
Speaker 2:Well, the first one, I didn't know, but when you said cloth, cloth or or disposable, like, that argument's been going on for like years yeah, there's always, you know, people on either one.
Speaker 1:Are you going to do co-sleeping? You're going to use formula? Are you not going to use formula? How is the sleep regression going? What car seats are actually worth the money? What medicines are currently okay to give kids? What are the end toys?
Speaker 1:This is a huge market, and not the least because there are a lot of uncertainties, especially for first-time parents, of course, but even for parents who have been around the block a couple times. Because stuff changes, Recommendations change, Styles change. Because stuff changes like recommendations change, styles change, like what you may have done with your first kid especially if you've had like a couple of kids in between or you waited, that may not be the norm anymore what your parents did with you, like the type of things of like you know what medicines you would give your kid, or how you're going to react to certain things. All of that can, like really really change fairly quickly. Quote, unquote. You know this is not. We're not in the age where, like, oh, what my mom did, what my grandmother did, what her grandmother did, Like you can just kind of assume that that's what we're going to do here. In fact, now I would worry that would be the opposite. That's like oh, no, no, no, we don't do that anymore. And so now you're on the completely wrong side if you listen to them. So even if you have mom who's back to like, oh, you know, when you were a small child and had a cough, I gave you a little tea spoon of brandy. Whoops, Don't do that no more. You know stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So people are kind of constantly looking for what am I supposed to be doing right now? And obviously you know moms want the best for their kids. Like that's why they're here is that they want them to have a good life and they want them to have nice things. So when you have questions you're going to look to the people around you to be like, what are you doing? Like you know, if you have a kid, you know. So you probably don't know this, but obviously babies come out and they have little fingernails and their fingernails are gonna grow, but they're itty bitty and so that's why you see babies with those little like mitts on so they don't accidentally scratch themselves. But I've also heard horror stories of people like trying to trim their baby's nails and it just like going horrifically because baby doesn't. You know, baby is baby. Baby doesn't understand that you need to hold fucking still. So I can trim your nail oh god you know.
Speaker 1:So you're, you're panicking. You're a first time mom, you're sleep deprived. You're like how the fuck do I do this little shit? Uh, you know you're gonna want to look to somebody to be like how did you do this?
Speaker 2:you know what. So screw you on that, because I actually do understand, considering the fact that I have a little furball who I have to trim her nails. Mm-hmm, and much like a baby, she's kicking my arm, you know, and biting my hand as I'm trying to clip her nails and it's like dude, this is for your own good, right. No, no.
Speaker 1:I want them sharpened, growing into my paw pads. See, you understand motherhood perfectly. You are officially a mama, so, yeah, it's healthy. It's normal to be kind of questioning stuff and be like what do I do, what do I buy, how do I deal with this? And before the internet, of course, and even now without the internet, there are still like in-person ways to do this.
Speaker 1:So you may go to motherhood classes. Maybe you're doing like yoga for expecting moms, maybe the hospital that you're going to be giving birth at has a class, and so you're going to meet other women from your area who are more or less like their babies, who do about the same time as you. Now, that doesn't mean you're all going to become fast friends, of course, but it gives you a chance to talk to other mothers who are going through stuff. Afterwards, you know you're going to have play dates, like your child may be in daycare. You meet other people. There are always these times and possibilities to meet people in real life and talk to them about what they're doing. So if you're doing that there, if you're doing that in person, why not on the internet? Well, remember when I said this was like a huge market.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's right, mama Bear, there's money to be made here. So, yeah, it's no surprise that people would kind of quickly realize that the thing they had been doing for free ie writing these mommy blogs or posting cute photos on Instagram or stuff like that you could monetize the shit out of it. You've got ads, product reviews, gifts, amazon storefront discount codes, sponsorships, and these, of course, are not just exclusive to mommy bloggers and momfluencers. Obviously, all influencers, all people can kind of jump in on this and be like oh yeah, you know, get my discount code, check out my amazon storefront to see what I'm using here. I just think that this is a very specific kind of insidious way, because you have a group of people who is very specifically looking to see what other people are doing to to do the right thing, to do what we're all doing, to do the correct thing, and you're gonna sit there and be like check out my amazon stuff and okay, so this, this already I'm, I'm, it is irking me.
Speaker 2:I I know, like when you and I first started talking, like you know, about doing a podcast, one of the very first things that we talked about was and I'm not going to mention their name, because they, they always put out cease and desist letters but a certain company, um, of greater assistance, uh, let's call them does it rhyme with gether dope?
Speaker 2:yes, yes, yes, it does. So you know, like shit like that is, oh god, has a fucking mental health. Uh, you know provider like is is absolute. You know horrible, sad, fucking bullshit that that puts a lot of people in jeopardy. So yeah, um, if people have no problem advertising that type of shit, they're not having your baby's um well-being in in mind yep and I would.
Speaker 1:I would like to believe that if any of these mom fluencers just like completely went off the rails in terms of advertising baby stuff Now, some of them have gone off the rails, but slightly different way, but in terms of like, you should totally get this. You know, stroller, whatever, and the stroller turned out to be like really awful that I think that there would actually be a backlash. So they don't go quite that far, but they definitely. Everything is monetized and you know, on the one hand, I'm like, you know, I get it.
Speaker 1:You're out of work, you're at home, like you need to make money somehow because, as we've just established, babies are expensive and, for context, anyone who's not American, at least in today's world, in the US right now, it is not uncommon for mom's salary to basically be paying for childcare, Like once you have your maternity leave that's over, which of course depends on what your company has given you. There is no like automatic maternity leave here. Then your kid has to go into childcare and the cost of childcare often equals like it's so expensive. It is your salary, like you're just you're paying. The money comes in, the money goes right back out again.
Speaker 1:So it's not surprising that there are a lot of women who are just like you know what. My career is not so important. I wasn't going to get so high up that I feel like I need to go back and just start working again so that I don't lose out. I'd rather just stay home with my kids and raise them until they go off to school and then I'll go back into the workforce. So that's why you tend to have this kind of like large group of women, specifically in the U? S, who are at home raising their kids and who are then kind of looking around like damn, it'd be nice to have some extra income here, cause, remember, we've set up society at this point to be a two-income household.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the days of father knows best is long gone yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know you're this mom, you're home alone, you've got a kid. What else are you going to be doing? You turn to the internet and you start talking about being a mom and you talk about things that are useful to a lot of people, and many of them are useful. I would like to point that out, that if you are somebody who would like to have children, it's a great time and also not a great time, of course, to be on the internet, because you can find all sorts of stuff about people talking about what should you bring with you in your hospital bag? What do you not need? What are unexpected changes your body's going to go through, like DIY baby food?
Speaker 1:There's all sorts of stuff you can find on the internet now of people hawking their various lifestyles to you. So you know you start off on this path to top mom fluencer and now you've got this huge following that hangs on your every word because they trust you, right Like you're the one who suggested that they buy this specific sleep sack or this specific travel crib, and your kid loved that. So they're going to follow you because clearly, your kids think the same quote unquote. And they're also, of course partially following you because they want to live that lifestyle that you're promoting as this influencer. It's no mistake that most of these momfluencers that word always trips me up I don't want it to exist. It's no surprise that they've gone from the unpolished realness kind of at the beginning to this much more like perfect beigeness now. Yes, you still have a lot of them who are talking about very real things that they're going through, but if you just kind of quick scroll through all of the top influencers mom fluencers anyway, it's going to be a very like pastel perfect.
Speaker 1:Like you know, yeah, we throw in the odd little story here and there about troubles or something, but you know troubles don't sell products. Cute family photos get you discount codes. Cute family photos get you discount codes. Cute family photos get you that little Amazon storefront thing. If they click through and they buy it from your page, you get that little kickback code. That's what cute photos get you is money.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's good times on the internet, yay.
Speaker 2:Yay Internet.
Speaker 1:So, in addition to you know, selling these cute photos cause you're not actually selling the photos this isn't only fans. You're selling something less tangential You're selling your life. You're selling your life, and part of that means showing your kids and sharing your kids, and this is not entirely momfluencers' fault. I'm going to give them the itty-bittiest little bit of like not on you, because when you look back to blogs and you're taking photos, it's a lot easier to crop kids out of the photo or just not take a photo where you see the kids, so you just you see the finished product. Or maybe you see the kids like playing in the thing that you built them, but their backs are turned so you don't see their face. It's also a much simpler time on the internet. We had a lot less technology that can do crazy shit like we do now.
Speaker 1:People were still more okay with like sharing photos. I mean, you think back to the early days of facebook, like the photos we put on there or myspace. People weren't thinking, because this technology didn't exist, that you could take photos and do crazy shit with them, that that was not really a thing back then. So people weren't thinking about that. When you posted a photo of like you know, here are the kids like doing something cute. It just it was, but there was a lot more writing that was involved. The photos were there to kind of illustrate what you were doing, but a lot of the times, when I think back to some of the mommy blogs I stumbled upon at the time because, I mean, I was working as a camp counselor what 2010, 2011. So like blogs were still a thing.
Speaker 1:Percy, the pale face so glad you remember that. You know I stumbled upon mommy blogs that were talking about activities they did with their kids and so much more writing. The photos that were there were more for like. Here is me doing the thing like step-by-step instructions, as opposed to. Here's my child fucking around with whatever it is and zooming around and like you get full on face Like I see everything, like I could identify your child in public.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:With the video. It's a lot harder, especially when the product that you were selling is your family's lifestyle. Like you can't just can't just cut the kids out of the family. It's real hard to kind of do that. And of course, you do have moms who make an effort to protect their kids' identities. I spoke with a couple of my friends who are parents and all of them said that they are able to find mom fluencers that they follow who make a concerted effort to not show their kid's face. Like they blur the kid's face if they're in the background. The videos are not focused on the kid as much, but the kid is still there and obviously you know what mom looks like. You've got an idea of who the kid is, because pretty much all of the big name momfluencers show their kids.
Speaker 2:I'm already seeing where this is going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've, you've seen these kids like multiple. If you scroll through the Instagram, you can very easily like figure out who they are. They may have given them nicknames, they may have not. You may have that child's real name, you may know that kid's birthday. Again, some do a better job of giving the kids a nickname and you know, you may know that the tiger was born in October, but you don't know when. You still have a lot of information about that kid Because, whether they mean to or not, little things are going to kind of slip through about where they live and so you may not be able to identify.
Speaker 1:It's like oh, you're in south carolina, you know you're in nebraska. Like I can kind of figure out based on something that you've said, or I may recognize the city that you're in because you're constantly fucking filming it as you're filming your child being like here's us on the day out on the saturday and I have. The weirdest thing I've ever had happen to me was on instagram and I was scrolling and I hit this video. This was like a year or so ago and I'm looking at this video and I was like that's my high school shit like that.
Speaker 1:That is my high, someone in my high school like at some point recently, like one of the students filming stuff, doing something stupid. It was really surreal.
Speaker 2:Because I'm looking, I was like I recognize this I, I've done that too, like I, where I see something, I'm like I'm asking a portion of them all yeah, yep, you, you can.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you've been there often enough or something is distinctive enough that it may not, like, feel really distinctive and somebody else watching that isn't going to be like, oh, I know exactly where that is, but people who have been there will recognize what it is and so you can still identify for a lot of these people. Most of them have just said, most of these moms have just said like about where they are, so you can narrow it down from there. So there.
Speaker 2:There's a thing I see every once in a while pop up on my instagram. It's a guy, he, he, I mean with the person's permission, like you know, they'll go online. They'll say like, I bet you can't find me. And then he, like, he starts looking for clues, like Steve Flagg. Then people around the world, and, and he'll, just, like you know, go through their social media. They'll say like, oh, and I knows that you took a picture on this place. You know, like, and this is grown in this place, and blah, blah within, like you know, like, um, I mean, the guy obviously cuts down the video, but he'll say I went through three hours of looking for a certain lamppost and I finally found it at this location. Blah, blah, blah. So I mean, within a matter of maybe, you know, 10 hours, you know he finds precise locations. And again, that is him doing it with permission. That's, yeah.
Speaker 1:That scares the shit out of me that if somebody wants to go for a kid, you could very easily find most of these kids and, again, the fact that, faces covered or not, you typically have enough information, little things here and there.
Speaker 1:Of course it's not all going to be in one video, but if you were dedicated you can absolutely, as you said, you know, you spend 10 hours just kind of scrolling through looking for everything and you will have enough information to probably identify about where this family is. Or you just wait, don't have it yet, like if, if you want to be real creepy, just wait and stuff will get dropped by accident. Little things here or there, because when you are selling this lifestyle, you don't have the ability to turn it off me, like I'm just not gonna take photos of that part. Like we're constantly pushing for these people to create more and more and more content, which means they have to film more and more and more, which means more and more opportunities for you to recognize or see something. Be like, yep, I know where you are, or I know where you were, and so I can figure out kind of from there, like, where things are.
Speaker 2:Oh God, that's scary.
Speaker 1:So, in addition to filming all of this stuff and people being able to figure out where you are, we also have the fun fact that everything is content because of what I just said, where people want more and more more videos, more reels, more everything. I want to see everything about your family, so everything's now content. Birthday party Content. Child has a meltdown Content. It's a toy that they got, a toy review. That's also content. Embarrassing stories Either of you filming your child directly doing something really fucking stupid because kids do that a lot, or you telling a story later on the internet about my childhood XYZ. What is it?
Speaker 2:Content. Yay, yay, working um in mental health, I still have to follow by hippo balls. Yeah, so the thing is is, like you know, like if you ever hear me tell a story about, like, a client or something like that, usually you'll hear me go from him to they. Also, I'll change up the story enough so that way it's not specific to this person. And that's if I ever were to tell a story of a client.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I have to use such vague language that, even if the person who is listening to me, they would not be able to recognize themselves. So, yeah, I mean, you know it in like, oh, I have a client that did this and into this podcast because of the fact that, yeah, I would have to either one, change up the story so much that it wouldn't even make sense anymore, or, two, I just don't want to fuck around with my license like that.
Speaker 1:It's not worth it. Yeah, and so with all of that comes the question of you know what happens when your kid discovers this that you've created on the internet? It's not just that, like the whole world now knows this story about you, not even momfluencers, I mean. I have a couple people who I know from high school who have kids, and there are two in particular who overshare on Facebook, and you know what? Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes the poop in the bathtub story is funny. However, I also look at that and I'm like if I were that kid and I discovered this in 10 years when I'm a teenager that my mom posted multiple statuses about me pooping in the bathtub and playing with it, how would I feel? The answer is not great. How would I feel if my classmates found that?
Speaker 2:yeah, especially, oh god, fucking high school Like oh.
Speaker 1:High school, middle school, like they stumble across that and you may think that you've got some real secure protection on Facebook, which everyone should. You know. Just go check right now, See what everyone can see. Make sure you've got like friends of friends. Do they really need to see all your photos? Probably not. Just think about that. But even if you have like walls and you're like, no, it's only friends, you don't know who has accidentally left their Facebook open for some kid to accidentally come across. You don't know who has hacked into somebody's account. You don't know who has found another way to eventually see this, eventually see this. And now they're on your page and they have free access and they're scrolling through and they're like, oh, look what I found, look what your mom said about you, and all it takes is a little screenshot, you share it and that's in 2024 that we have that ability.
Speaker 2:It will only get worse yeah, I mean, well, I mean, you're a friend of mine on facebook and and so I, I even have my facebook. My name is changed on facebook, that way clients don't find me and things like that. Um, but also on top of that, like I'm very, very cautious about what I post, which, even if I do post, post, it's something that you know like a achievement that I made yeah you know I'm not gonna be like you know, oh my god, where are this one client, that?
Speaker 2:no, because if I were to have that one client that absolutely drove me nuts or something like that and I post it, don't need that shit on on fucking out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and both of these two women. Just, it's not constant stories like that, but there's already, there's, there's that that they're just putting out there like this constant stream of thought about what their children are doing. It's like I can appreciate the humor that again from a they're just putting out there like this constant stream of thought about what their children are doing. It's like I can appreciate the humor in it again from a distance. But I can also look at that and this was maybe a year or so ago that she posted the poop in the bathtub story. It still haunts me because I didn't want to be exposed to that. Yes, funny. But also I remember thinking at the time I was like, when your kid grows up and he sees this, yes, that's gonna be a fun conversation to have.
Speaker 1:The other one, her kids are quite a bit older. Um, some of her, two of her kids, or she has four and they've already started to ask her to not post things and she's talked about this. And I was like, okay, I'm glad that you have acknowledged that and you're listening to your kids wishes, but I also think that we shouldn't have had to get to the point that your teenage son was saying mom, please don't post this on facebook you know and okay.
Speaker 2:So I will give a little bit of credit to the moms because they might be posting something that they are proud of like. Oh, my son graduated high school with val victorian but kids like man stop yeah, yeah, so you know like okay, so to to a degree it is common knowledge, but there there is going to be that little wiggle room of talk to your kid first before posting.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. And you know with her, with this second mom she has posted less personal stuff about her kids.
Speaker 1:She over shares about herself excessively oh boy there's a lot going on there, but I can see where her son was just like stop posting photos of me. Um, and she did to her credit, like because I had noticed. I was like, dang, I ain't seen photos of the older two nearly as much in a while and that was why and of course it came up in the post and I was like, oh okay, I'm glad to hear you're respecting that. But these two people, they kind of have that choice because they haven't monetized the shit out of their children. They have that choice and ability to be like maybe I shouldn't post this, maybe I won't post these photos. But when you're selling your kid's lifestyle and your lifestyle, that's what the internet wants. The internet wants poop bathtub stories because it's funny. But now that's out there and it's attached to your name and it's attached to your child's name, all because you wanted to get a little Amazon kickback whenever people bought a set of markers made in China.
Speaker 2:You know I hate you right now because I'm now picturing a crowd of people you know demanding, like standing outside of the mom's house, more poop pictures, more poop pictures.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank God there were no pictures for this. I mean, the story was horrific, it was there.
Speaker 1:There were like multiple statuses coming over the course of about an hour she did not have a good evening, but, like I mean, people were commenting and like it was, it was a whole thing and I was just like, maybe if you weren't commenting back, things would not have escalated the way they did. But you know, you do you, you're the one who had to clean it up, not me. So next week we will be talking about if in case you thought that this wasn't bad enough where we are. Next week we'll be looking at the intersection of trad wives, momfluencers and people who, absolutely again, just like post their child for any amount of money. But I do want to ask you now tentatively where would you place the momfluencer on our scale of toxicity? Because we'll talk about where do we go from here next week, I think, once you have the full picture of how bad it can get.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think, the scale. I would wait until next week to say, because I have a feeling I know where you're going with this and what you know right now.
Speaker 1:Would you say that momfluencers are a green potato. You know got some bad parts but you can most scrape it off, so eat it fine. Are they death cap mushroom 50, 50 chance of killing you? Or are they antifreeze a delicious but deadly last meal?
Speaker 2:I would put this at a death cap already, as is okay just because of the fact that, like that last point that you kind of bring up is definitely like, because, again, especially like middle school and high school, yeah, you, you pooped in the bathtub when you were fucking it was multiple times.
Speaker 2:You know when you were like you know like two or three years old, but kids at that age like in middle school and high school, like you've pretty much assigned your your fucking death wish on that and it all it takes is for one person to see it, screenshot it and send it out to you know a bunch of people and now the entire school knows something that you did at the age of fucking three and you may not even realize that this story exists about you right, right, you know, like and I mean, who doesn't have something embarrassing?
Speaker 2:like I'm sure, like all hell, I did stupid things at three because I was, um, oh yeah, three. So I'm sure that there were stupid things I did at the age of three. Then I'd be like I shouldn't admit to that and every single person on this earth has that. But again, as long as you know, especially like middle school and high school kids, they don't care about the shit that they did when they were three. It's the fact that they found this kid mom and a story about them.
Speaker 1:Well, I also think about how I would feel if I even just found that myself, Like if I scrolled back through my mom's Facebook or something and I discovered a story about me doing something horrific like that. I would be so embarrassed.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there are stories because, as you said, like three-year-olds are holy terrors and small children just do stuff like that. Like you know, business calls, nature calls and whoopsies like that's just, that's part of being a kid. Oh, but to have to find that about yourself, like even now at my age, like if I suddenly found that my mom had posted, like publicly posted, a story about this, that, yeah, no, thank you. So, yes, I will tentatively agree with your assessment, although, again, I warn you, it gets worse.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I I have a feeling I've seen YouTubes on this particular thing.
Speaker 1:If you're bringing up you're bringing up. Yep, we're going there.
Speaker 2:I thought so.
Speaker 1:Yep. So in the meantime, until next week, if you have any horrific stories that your parents have ever shared about you or that your Facebook friends have overshared about you, or that your Facebook friends have overshared about their own offspring, please don't tell us.
Speaker 1:Actually rather not for once. I don't want to know those. Let's just keep those private and not potentially embarrass people down the road. But if you would like to share any other stories or thoughts about the podcast with us, you can write to us at toxic at awesome life skills dot com. You can also message us on any of our social media, which you should already be following. We're on Facebook. We're on Twitter slash X. We're on Instagram. We're on threads. We're on TikTok oh yeah, you can follow us there and see what we are not posting Until next week. This has been the Toxic Cooking Show. Bye, Bye you.
