Our babies grow up so fast, don't they? One way to chart a child's evolution - if you don't fancy pen marks tracked all the way up your walls - is through clothes. Your clothes.
Mom Brandy Yearous found a sweet way to chronicle her kids' growth spurts. Once a year, she photographs her son wearing the same pair of her husband's jeans; while her daughter slips into her own wedding gown.
The birthday tradition started with Ryan's birth in 2001, and has been going strong ever since. No matter how hectic those celebrations are, someone remembers to grab the camera and the clothes.
While at first the garments look absurdly big, these days the kids have filled in nicely. The wedding dress straps and the jeans no longer fall down.
Yearous describes the progression as “heartbreaking.”
The visuals also offer a window into the kids' lives at the time. For instance, Yearous remembers a given year when "my son’s baseball team all went with mohawks."
The Idaho mom isn't the only one charmed by the time capsule. Friends on Facebook have been following along and looking "forward to watching my kids grow.”
Well, it sure beats a ratty growth chart on the wall. And who knows, before too long that wedding dress may come to fit like a glove and make its way down the aisle a second time around...
Unaffordable housing means more and more grown children are living with their parents. But not all of them appreciate the roof overhead.
A Toronto single mom drew up an invoice to show her ungrateful 23-year-old son the value of money, including a $1K charge for being "being an *sshole and not appreciative of your mother’s support financially or otherwise.”
Because "Kevin" proved unhelpful, his mom produced a bill of all the expenses he'd incurred in the past five years. She included his share of bills like gas and Hydo, health costs and house cleaning - for a grand total of $39,254.17.
While the intent of the invoice was simply to make Kevin aware of the many ways - financially and otherwise - that she supports him, his mom claims she doesn't expect him to pay up.
"This was a very effective parenting technique and it has helped me to realize what an entitled little shit I have been," he wrote on Reddit. The post has since been removed.
As tactics go, the invoice is not new. Other parents have tried it before and though Kevin claims it was effective, I beg to differ.
From time to time we parents joke about how much "our services" cost, yet it's hardly the way to teach kids to be accountable and appreciative. All it does is pit parent and child against each other - with an added element of public shaming via social media.
After all, your child is not your tenant. Your child is your dependent. You can't put a price tag on love or a value on child-rearing. It comes with the territory. We mustn't calculate what we do for our children and what they do for us like it's some passive-aggressive game of Monopoly.
One person doesn't "owe" the other. I'm no money expert, but I doubt very much that sending a mock invoice will impart the kind of lesson about appreciation and accountability children need to learn.
If your child is an adult still living at home, as in this scenario, then that's a somewhat different story. You either let your child stay for free - no strings, or guilt, attached - or else you agree the terms and conditions beforehand.
From an early age, kids start by contributing at home by doing chores. Then, when they're old enough, they learn the value of money by getting a job and saving their own money. Parents don't have to wield the silver spoon. But we don't have to be spiteful or grudging about our finances, either.
Jessica Alba's Honest Company is under scrutiny after testing apparently revealed the brand's popular detergent contains the very chemicals it claims to avoid.
Touted as creating safe, more environmentally friendly products, the Honest Company's laundry detergent is said to contain "known irritant" sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS).
But two independent tests commissioned by The Wall Street Journal found "significant" concentrations of the chemical in the detergent - as much as in rival brand, Tide.
As an alternative, Honest uses sodium coco sulfate (SCS), yetIscientists state that SCS itself is a blend of cleaning agents that contains SLS.
Honest officials thoroughly disputed the claim, saying it was based on junk science, and issued the following statement:
"We stand behind our laundry detergent and take very seriously the responsibility we have to our consumers to create safe and effective products."
It's not the first time Honest has come up against criticism. Last year, angered customers who had used the company's sunscreen posted photos of severe sunburns on social media.
So it begs the question: What does honesty mean when it comes to full disclosure?
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