Parenting isn't for the faint of heart, and parenting in 2020 is even more so. And one mom has the photos to prove it.
Paige Ward, a 29-year-old mom of four in Oklahoma, got quite a surprise--at her own expense--when she got her two-year-old daughter Emma's school photos back and realized she'd sent her daughter to school on picture day in an extremely inappropriate t-shirt.
She posted the hilarious moment to TikTok, where it has lots of people laughing, and many other moms feeling seen.
In her TikTok, Paige gave words of comfort to mothers everywhere. Her captions read:
"If you ever thought you were a bad mom, at least you didn't forget picture day, and send your toddler to school in this."
Then, Paige showed a school picture of her daughter in a t-shirt that appears to read, "As*hole."
Now don't worry, the shirt actually says "Sasshole," and was a gift from a friend in honor of Emma's sassy personality. But the timing couldn't have been worse!
Paige spoke to BuzzFeed News about how this mishap happened. Like so many of us nowadays, Paige is struggling to make ends meet as the pandemic drags on. The morning of picture day, she'd just finished a 60-hour week at her job, and was understandably wipe out.
As she told BuzzFeed:
"I woke up that morning exhausted and grabbed the first thing out of her closet I could see, which happened to be the famous 'sasshole' shirt."
A couple days later, Emma's dad came home after picking her up from school carrying a packet of photo proofs. And there inside were several photos of her daughter branded an "As*hole."
Naturally, Paige was mortified at first. But then she couldn't help but dissolve into a fit of laughter.
"...[T]he entire time I was dying laughing because it just fits Emma's personality and 2020 so well."
Sending our toddlers to be photographed with profanity across their chests really is precisely the kind of nonsense one should expect in 2020. Who among us!
And her fellow TikTokers were just as entertained by the mix-up as Paige was.
@thatgirlsellstexas/TikTok
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@vaughanhousegreenhouse/TikTok
@copperthadeer/TikTok
@jess.peachy.keen/TikTok
@initialfocus/TikTok
@carrieleigh82/TikTok
@frenchfries940/TikTok
@roxxaguilar__/TikTok
@kelihinnant/TikTok
Paige also told BuzzFeed that, during what has been an extraordinarily difficult 2020, Emma's picture day mix-up has been "just the comedic relief we have been needing." Us too, Paige, us too!
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@evanrachelwood/Instagram