“I was most bruised by the people who wanted me silent.”

In a new documentary about her life, lesbian Jamaican poet and memorist Staceyann Chin is anything but silent. She is loud and unafraid to tackle the difficult parts of her history, which include abandonment, violence, her sexuality and, most importantly, motherhood, from both her perspective as a mother and a daughter.

A Mother Apart digs into Chin’s relationship with her mother Hazel, who abandoned Chin multiple times in her childhood. After promising to return within weeks when Chin was nine, Hazel disappeared. It would be years before she was found.

“I suppose I only set out to tell my story,” Chin tells me ahead of the documentary’s premiere on PBS. “But you can’t tell your story without telling your family’s story.”

“It’s even more complicated because I’m a memoir writer,” she continues. “But I’d like to think I’ve done my best to make sure my mother is portrayed in a fair light, in a true light.”

I believe she more than excels at what she was trying to do in telling her story.

Throughout the film, which took about six years to make, Chin goes around the world to piece together who Hazel was and what would have pushed her to abandon Chin and her older brother. First, she finds herself in Montreal, where she and her daughter Zuri travel to the home her mother lived in for many years when Chin was a child.

During the trip, they speak with neighbors who have nothing but fond memories of Hazel. At the same time, they are shocked to learn Staceyann was not the child they had briefly met. In fact, they didn’t even know Hazel had two children she had left behind in Jamaica. Despite the shock, they assured Chin that this sudden revelation didn’t change the way they felt about Hazel. She obviously felt their sentiment horrifying and frustrating.

Chin exploration of her mother’s past is frequently cut with scenes of her on stages around the world performing her poetry, much of it grappling with her abandonment and feminism. She is a fierce and fiery performer and writer. Strike that, she is a fierce and fiery person; everything about her explodes out of her pores.

While much of the first hour of the film rightfully treats Hazel as a ghost whose memory exists solely to taunt the daughter she left behind, she becomes an alarmingly real presence in the latter portion of the film. In her twenties, she found her mother living in Germany and learned she had a little sister, who has an equally fraught relationship with their mother despite being “raised” by her. The relationship between the sisters is deep.

Hazel in the present does finally appear when Staceyann travels to Germany after Covid restrictions are lifted. Neither sister has communicated with their mother since the pandemic began, but that doesn’t keep the older sister from trying.

“I keep people; I’m a people keeper,” Chin tells her mother and sister over lunch. It’s the reason she continues to make an effort to maintain a relationship with her mother, even though the older woman seems reluctant at best to live up to her end of the deal.

“I will always do the work to hold onto you,” Chin states firmly.

When Hazel finally appears on-screen, I didn’t realize how desperate I was to actually see her and hear her voice. Once she’s given the space to tell her side of the story, I had to reconcile the woman on screen with the same one I knew inflicted constant cruelty on her children. Chin and filmmaker Laurie Townshend do an amazing job never painting Hazel as a hero or a villain. She’s just a woman who made certain choices.

Hazel’s participation in the film is fascinating. Not everyone would be so willing to show up, knowing how their decisions would likely be perceived. “[Hazel was] owed the opportunity to respond to my stories about her,” Chin tells me. “And I think she did a hell of a job.”

In the final half hour of the film, Chin watches the interview with her mother while the director films her. After pausing, she reveals she has never asked her mother why she left directly but explains she knows why her mother left her: Her choices were to languish in poverty for the rest of her life or start over and have a better life someplace else with someone new.

Chin has a “deep empathy” for her mother. However, the young girl in her cannot fully forgive Hazel for leaving. It is a wound that is far too deep, no matter how much she can empathize with her mother’s choices. She explains her mother may not be dealing with the same kind of “deep loneliness” she was if she hadn’t abandoned or mistreated her children.

“Why do you keep coming back for her?” the director asks. “I don’t come for her,” Chin replies. “I come because it is the decent thing to do.”

“It’s a kindness I can offer her,” she continues. “It’s also a kindness I can offer myself.”

As the film ends, Chin says, “I think the more you understand about the process of mothering, the more grace you can extend to the mothers who perhaps mothered you in ways that might have bruised you.” The final shot is of her and her daughter Zuri on a hill, the sun high in the sky between them.

Throughout A Mother Apart, we get these lovely little nuggets of Chin’s relationship to her growing daughter. Through old social media videos and current conversations the two have, we’re able to piece together the deep love they have for each other. It was her relationship with her daughter that I was most interested in when we talked.

“There was a sense that the only way I was going to experience motherhood, the mother/daughter relationship, was if I became the mother,” Chin explains.

Staceyann Chin is a single mother by choice. She touches on Zuri’s origins in the documentary, where she explains even though she was an out lesbian, she married a gay poet named Peter. Together, they believed they were going to be pioneers of the new “modern family,” she tells me.

Peter got cancer and died before they could make their modern family dream a reality. What came next was nearly ten years of clawing uphill. It wasn’t easy for a single lesbian (her sexuality is always a matter of fact, never a source of contention in the documentary) to procure sperm in the late aughts, and it was even harder to find Black sperm. “Your standards start very high,” she jokes. “And then you realize you don’t really have much choice.”

Chin describes her once “feral” need to get pregnant with a touch of humor. It was so strong, she considered propositioning men in airplane bathrooms to get her pregnant just because she liked their teeth. However, everything changed when Peter’s brother CJ entered the picture, offering his sperm. And with that, the original dream she had longed for came true.

Zuri has a relationship with her father and his family, which is beautiful, but not without sorrow for Chin. “You grow up and you thrash about what your parents didn’t do and what your mother fell down on and how she failed you,” she says of her feelings. “And then by the time you have your own kid you’re like ‘oh my god.’ There are some things that she might need that I absolutely can’t provide. And I’ve worn the sorrow of that. That has made it easier for me to see my mother’s failings as limitations that she had no control over.”

Over the course of the film, Zuri goes from first grader to tween, which is quite a time period to cover. “My daughter is young, so she’s for the most part happy to be a part of the project,” Chin says. “She’s proud of who she is and who I am. Time will tell if she remains that way. I have tried to let her know that there is room for her to disagree. This story is true for me. But it could be entirely different if she decides to share her story when that time comes.”

A Mother Apart will be available to stream free through PBS until the end of October.

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“Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.” ~W.E.B. Du Bois

I was standing at the service bar, waiting for my drink order to be ready. The scent of steak fat clinging to my apron and infusing itself into my bra, while twenty-something servers around me whined about working on Mother’s Day… yet I was the only mother working that night.

I’d barely slept because I’d closed the restaurant the night before.

My nine-year-old daughter had just told me she wished she were dead.

And here I was, pretending to care about side plates and drink refills when all I wanted was to be home holding her, telling her she mattered. Instead, I snapped—righteous and broken all at once—and stormed out to the alley behind the kitchen where I could cry without making a scene.

That was the moment I knew: something had to change. Not for me. For her. Because if I stayed in this life, this marriage, this pattern, she would learn it too.

Up until then, I thought I was protecting her. I fooled myself into thinking that there wasn’t too much harm, because the yelling wasn’t directed at her. That I could absorb the blows. That love was sacrifice. But kids don’t learn from what you say. They learn from what you model. And I was modeling self-betrayal.

Her stepfather’s cruelty wasn’t new. Neither was the exhaustion I carried in my bones from trying to patch over the cracks with routine and denial. But watching her crumble under the same pressure I had normalized? That shattered something in me that couldn’t be glued back together.

I married him because I saw a wonderful father for my daughter. I saw him get down to her level and play with her. They would giggle together. Be silly together. Be kids together.

Well, that was all fine and dandy when she was three, four, five years old, but at some point, she began to outgrow him. While he sat stuck in his trauma, she matured. She was growing to be a strong little lady.

He didn’t like that. So, when I wasn’t around, he would lash out and treat her like a slave, a whipping boy, but also whined and threw temper tantrums. She had now become the surrogate mother of a petulant child.

She was nine. She should have been thinking about art projects or bike rides, not death.

When I confronted my husband about how he spoke to her, it only made things worse. So she begged me never to mention it to him again and informed me that she would no longer confide in me. I hated myself for letting that happen. The very moment I thought I was being strong and standing up for my little girl, I was actually just prolonging her punishment.

I was staying for stability, for financial security, for some misguided sense of loyalty. Those were the moments that provided her with a blueprint for her own suffering.

There’s this narrative that mothers must be martyrs. That our suffering is noble, even necessary. But I don’t buy it anymore. Because what good is a self-sacrificing mother if all her child learns is how to silence themselves in order to survive?

Leaving wasn’t brave. It was survival. I packed us up, found a small apartment, and started over with debt, doubt, and one hell of a broken heart. Not just from the marriage but from the years I’d spent disconnected from myself. My daughter didn’t need a perfect mother. She needed a peaceful one.

It wasn’t a clean break. I cried in closets and called him at 2 a.m. and hated myself for the longing. I felt like I’d lost my mind. But I was beginning to find my voice. And slowly, she started to smile again. Her shoulders relaxed. We giggled like two girlfriends. We reinvigorated our “‘nuggling” tradition—Saturday nights with a big bowl of popcorn, snuggled up under a blanket together, watching a silly movie. Just the two of us. Just like it used to be. I knew we were going to be okay.

Healing didn’t come in grand epiphanies or social media-worthy quotes. It came in late-night sobs and morning coffee. In resisting the urge to explain myself to people who would never get it. In learning to sit with discomfort instead of racing to fix it.

I had to undo decades of believing that silence was safety. That if I didn’t rock the boat, we wouldn’t drown. But we were already drowning. And pretending otherwise was only teaching her how to hold her breath longer.

I had to unlearn the idea that being needed was the same as being loved. That caretaking and contorting myself for approval was noble.

I started showing her what boundaries look like. I started apologizing when I got it wrong. I started asking myself what I needed, not just what everyone else wanted from me.

I also had to let go of the fantasy that he would change. That if I just loved him better, communicated differently, forgave more quickly, then things would improve. That fantasy had a chokehold on me for years. It’s humbling—and liberating—to realize you can love someone and still not be safe with them.

Sometimes I wanted to go back, not because I believed things would be different, but because being alone with my thoughts was terrifying. I had to rebuild a relationship with myself that I didn’t even know was fractured.

I started journaling, walking, making playlists that made me cry and heal in the same breath. I was slowly, painfully learning to mother myself.

I watched her blossom with every ounce of peace we created. She didn’t flinch as much. She stopped asking me if something was wrong when I was having a moment of silence. She acted like a child again. I knew then that the mess I was wading through was already doing its work—not just in me, but in her.

We learned new rituals. Morning cuddles before school. Singing in the car. Cooking meals together and dancing in the kitchen while things simmered on the stove. It wasn’t just healing. It was joy. Honest, simple, borrowed-from-the-mundane joy.

I realized I didn’t have to keep waiting to feel safe. I could create it.

And in every small moment, I chose something different. I chose gentleness. I chose boundaries. I chose to believe that we were worthy of more.

There were still days I missed the chaos. That part of me that equated drama with passion, unpredictability with depth. But then I’d hear her talking to her stuffed animals in the next room or see her curled up in bed with her cat and remember: calm is not boring. It’s safe. And we deserve safe.

Eventually, the grief became quieter. The ache dulled. I stopped needing to explain the past to anyone, including myself. And I started dreaming again—not just for her but for me. I wanted her to grow up seeing her mother whole, not just holding it together.

Because one day, she would hit a wall of her own. She’d sit in a bathroom or an alley or a car, and she’d wonder how she got there. And I wanted her to remember that change is possible. That discomfort isn’t failure. That sometimes, being your own hero means walking away before the fire consumes you.

Some days, I still think about standing in the doorway of her room, unable to move—but needing to leave—looking at my sweet little girl who just told me she wished she’d never been born. The day I realized that being a mother wasn’t just about protecting my child from harm. It was about protecting her from becoming the kind of woman who thought harm was normal.

She didn’t need me to be unbreakable. She needed to see me break and still get up. So that’s what I did.

About Claudine Plesa

Claudine Plesa is an ordained minister, life and relationship coach, and the creator of Positive Divorce Blueprint. Twice divorced and thrice married, she writes about healing, identity, and emotional resilience with honesty, grit, and a dash of irreverent humour. She lives on a hobby farm in Ontario, Canada, surrounded by grandkids, animals, and an ever-growing sense of self. Learn more at positivedivorceblueprint.com

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Despite having a flourishing rap career, Cardi B has also been hard at work at building a family. While working on her second album, Am I The Drama?, she popped out with not just one, but two kids, giving her daughter Kulture two younger siblings before the project even had a title or release date.

Appearing on The Jennifer Hudson Show to promote that album, the Bronx native joked that she wanted even more kids, giving a hilariously unhinged line of reasoning for the desire. “The more kids you have, the less of a possibility you go to, like, a [nursing] home,” she explained. “One of them is gonna wipe my butt!”

Cardi also explained how she kept the kids grounded despite spoiling them rotten on their birthdays. “They have like a lot of cousins and a lot of my friends, they still outside, they still in the hood and everything,” she noted. “They was just in the Dominican Republic and it’s like, yeah, my grandma gonna make [them] clean and stuff. I want them to know that there’s another world out there that is not your world. It’s not always about [the] backyard, and foxes and deers — there’s rats and mices.”

You can watch Cardi’s interview with Jennifer Hudson above.

There are some movies that just stick with you forever. Some in really good ways, some in really terrifying ways, and some in ways you weren’t expecting. For me, becoming a mom meant that I suddenly had a list of movies I could truly never watch again. And I don’t just mean movies that make you think, “Oh, this hits a little harder now that I have kids,” I mean movies that I would literally run from if someone said I had to sit through and watch from beginning to end. Becoming a mom changes you, but I was not expecting motherhood to give me a list of movies to avoid for the rest of my life.

The same thing happened with Law & Order: SVU. Before I had my first daughter, I could watch it for hours, bingeing one episode after another. Now, the thought of listening to a whole hour-long procedural about a kid being hurt or a young girl being assaulted or any other horrifying thing that happens on that show is too much. My aversion to things like this became worse with each of my daughters’ births, and by the time my husband and I had our third girl, we could barely stomach a lot of shows and movies we once enjoyed.

So join me in shielding your eyes and making an enormously loud “yeeeechughhhhh” noise anytime someone mentions one of these movies. Kids completely change your DNA — and apparently also what you can handle in a movie plot.

Country singers love to write songs about big struggles, hard times, deep loss, and surviving it all. But when Margo Price writes a tune, it’s because she’s been there and done that. The 42-year-old mom of two dropped out of college to move to Nashville and try her luck at becoming a star. Six albums later, Price is a fixture in Music City and an internationally-known singer-songwriter. She’s also suffered incredible loss, fought addiction, and come out on the other side — even though she admits she’s still learning and still striving.

On Friday, Price will release her sixth studio album, Hard Headed Woman, which, after a few albums that experimented with new sounds and genres, is a return to country, folk, and a girl and her guitar. It’s also, like all of her albums, a deeply felt truth-bomb that sounds straight from the heart.

Price sat down with Scary Mommy over Zoom to talk about it all, from her new alcohol-free life, to her political activism, to what it feels like to grieve the loss of a child after 15 years.

Scary Mommy: Let’s start off talking about your new album. What’s exciting about it? What’s the same, what’s different?

Margo Price: It definitely feels like home to me. I’ve really tried to center the storytelling and the lyrics in a big way.

These last couple albums were maybe exploring some different sonic territory that I had not embarked upon, and I had so much fun doing it and don’t have any regrets. But I just wanted to get back to a place where I could pick up the guitar and — the whole song’s there. You don’t need a lot of extra drums or synths or any of that. That’s always been appealing to me. Just the folk and country storytelling aspects of songwriting.

SM: Is there a song or two that you want to highlight and tell me a little bit about?

MP: There’s a song that is called “Nowhere is Where,” and it was written with my husband Jeremy Ivey and another friend who’s a songwriter, Morgan Nagler. It’s a piece about where I come from. It’s really just paints a picture of middle America and kind of a desolate area, but it’s a place that still is very dear to my heart and it’s got a fun little kind of outro that is about burning the past and starting over and moving on. I’m always eternally in search of that.

SM: You got sober a couple years ago. Has that influenced your album at all and how has it affected your life?

MP: I’m always very careful to use the word sober, but I’m alcohol free.

I still partake in cannabis and psilocybin and plant medicines — so not sober — but feeling so much healthier without drowning myself in the liquor and the wine. I think that when you’re a musician and an artist and a writer, there’s thinking that you have to destroy yourself just to be able to produce. And I definitely have been addicted to some of that masochistic way of thinking that being a failure is part of the process.

Now, I am feeling my feelings in a way that I ran from as a child of the 80s and 90s when were were taught, don’t talk about anything, just keep it all happy on the surface.

So I’m doing all that “my inner child” bullshit, and it’s great drinking my magnesium at night and waking up not having to worry about who I slept with or what I said. So it’s good.

I still hang out in bars all the time, which is the most hilarious thing — it’s all wrapped up in there with the bartending and the singing in the bars and living in that way. So it’s like I’ve got the best of both worlds because I’m still socializing and still able to go out and see bands.

I just read a couple books and had what you call almost spontaneous sobriety. It wasn’t really anything planned. I wrote a memoir about my wild days of struggling in the music business, lost a child, relied very heavily on booze, and quite frankly, it saved my life and I’m very grateful that I had it for that time and season. But now I’m just in a different season and it happens to be psilocybin and coffee and hiking in the woods and telling all my troubles to the trees.

Joan Baez gave me some really great advice, and it’s like just every day, just do one thing, one thing, moving in the right direction.

SM: You mentioned child loss and I know that you lost one of your twins. A big part of our Scary Mommy community is dealing with similar losses. Is there anything that you want to share with our audience about what it looks like 15 years down the road?

MP: It’s funny because I’ve come a long way on my healing journey, but there’s a definite before and an after, and I think it’s something that you never get over. You just learn to deal with it differently.

Actually just two days ago was the anniversary of losing my son. It’s been 15 years, but it still hurts. And some years it hits you a little bit harder. I know a lot of women were just taught to not speak on miscarriages and loss. It makes people uncomfortable. But I think being able to talk about it and to do some therapy, it was transformative for me.

I would just say to anybody who has dealt with something like this, a mother or a father, just be careful with yourself. And if you are married and you have a spouse, I think they say that the statistics are 85% of couples that lose a child divorce, and we already know that 50% of couples just divorce anyway, so don’t judge your partner for how they’re grieving. Just continue to try to be with those uncomfortable feelings and not run from them. I definitely didn’t do all the right things right off the bat, but I’m in a much better place now.

SM: And really, how can you be expected to do everything right?

MP: I think we forget that when you have grief, that’s actually because there was a whole lot of love there. So I’ve even grown really attached to my grief and love the person that I’ve become because of it, because I just have this completely different outlook and a sympathy for people who are going through loss in any way that it happens. Just seeing all these parents who lost their children in Texas, in the flood, and I mean obviously just the wars that are going on, it’s hard to exist in a world where there’s so much pain. But we do have to enable ourselves to feel joy after great losses and continue to know that it’s okay to feel happy again.

SM: I’m sorry for your loss. Did you do anything to mark the day?

MP: I actually have a community of mothers that I keep in touch with, and we all reach out to each other on those days. And so I had a couple really deep phone calls with some friends, and I have an aunt who lost my cousin, her only daughter, and we always connect. So I think just being together through those hard times — it’s just good to have people to lean on.

SM: You mentioned war. You’re really active politically, and I feel right now that moms maybe don’t know how to how they can get out there and make a difference. Can you talk a little bit about your activism?

MP: I have tried to be present at a lot of the protests, especially around gun violence. When the Covenant shooting happened in Nashville, I went out and sang and protested, and I did not bring my daughter because I fear for her safety.

I do think that one thing that we can all do right now is call our representatives, write our representatives, email them.

There’s so many things going on that it can feel really overwhelming, but I think Joan Baez gave me some really great advice, and it’s like just every day, just do one thing, one thing, moving in the right direction.

I think you really have to spend your time wisely these days. And in the past, it does feel good to get on the internet and blow off some hot steam and fire off a hot take. But what really goes a long way is calling the people that are stripping our rights. Flood their inbox, leave them a message.

SM: You have an age gap between your kids that’s pretty significant — nine years. What’s your experience been with it? What are the pros and cons?

MP: Oh my goodness, there are so many of both.

People often ask us, whoa, what happened there? The answer simply is that we are not planners. But they have both been the joy of my life, and I’ve raised them both so differently because I was a different human at 27 than I was at 37.

I grew up seven and a half years older than my youngest sister. We are best friends now, and I would just do anything for her. And I think my children, despite having this large age gap, they still argue. They find ways to manipulate us and pit us against each other. But my son, he’s the older one, he has been very helpful with babysitting here and there, reading books to her. But it was definitely a big adjustment. He was used to being an only child. And my daughter Ramona is a very outgoing, very steal-the-show kind of character. She’s big character energy for sure, but she loves him so much and she looks up to him. We’re still figuring it out.

You’d think it would be easier with them being far apart, but sometimes I just want to pull my hair out.

SM: What’s your best parenting advice?

MP: My best parenting advice is let your children make their own mistakes. Let them do things that are a little bit dangerous. We’re living in a time where we’re trying to wrap everybody in bubble wrap, and we really need to let our children live messily and get dirty and climb trees and go break into abandoned buildings and do all the things that we were doing in our early years.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The number of things moms are juggling in their brains every day is unreal. And sometimes, the things we can’t stop thinking about are the things we also can’t really share out loud. Not because they’re always super bad or anything, but sometimes it’s just too much for people to hear. Too out-there, too inner-monologue, too cringe. For a lot of us moms, we’re holding in some incredibly wholesome thoughts that we know better than to shout out.

Because being happy and finding joy in something? It’s not always seen as a positive. Others will accuse you of forcing toxic positivity down their throat, will tell you to “read the room,” will insist that your joy is somehow offensive to their misery. Of course we all know better than to tell our friend going through hell and back how happy we are to have discovered chia seeds or whatever, but sometimes we just want to share our happy little thoughts so we can feel a little better.

That’s what this week’s confessions are all about. The moms are thinking about a lot — and a lot of it is super sweet and wholesome.

Scary Mommy Confessions are a tried-and-true part of what makes our site so fun. If you want to anonymously confess, look for our weekly callouts on Instagram. And to browse past Confessions, head here.

When Lindsey Pierce held her newborn son for the first time, she felt how calm he was in her arms, how right it all felt. In that moment, there was no sense of history or records being made. Just a mother, a baby, and the quiet weight of a beginning that had waited 30 years to arrive.

But the moment still carried something almost surreal: the baby she was cradling had been frozen as an embryo in 1994, before she graduated high school, before she met her husband Tim, before the internet was a household name.

Her son, Thaddeus Daniel Pierce, was born in July 2025. His biological sister? She’s 30 years old and a mother herself.

This is a story where time folds in on itself: a child conceived in one century, born in another, sharing DNA with a sister who now tucks her own children into bed. It’s a story about motherhood across decades, and the profound questions that follow.

A family, three decades in the making

In the early 1990s, Linda Archerd and her then-husband had been hoping for a child. After years of infertility, they turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF), a method of fertilizing eggs with sperm outside the body before implanting the resulting embryos. In 1994, four embryos were created. One was transferred to Linda and became a daughter, born later that year. The remaining three were frozen and placed into storage.

Over time, life moved on. Linda and her husband divorced. She raised her daughter, now a mother herself, and the frozen embryos became, in her words, a presence in the background of her life. Decades later, she learned about embryo adoption and made the decision to donate the three remaining embryos to another couple through an adoption agency.

When the time came to use the embryos, only one was strong enough to continue, a delicate thread of life preserved since 1994. That single embryo, frozen for nearly 31 years, was transferred to Lindsey Pierce and became her son, Thaddeus.

Related: After an IVF mix-up, two moms raised each other’s baby—here’s what happened (and how to protect your family)

What is embryo adoption—and how does it work?

Embryo adoption is a process in which families receive frozen embryos donated by another couple after IVF. Rather than remaining in storage indefinitely, these embryos can be implanted in a new recipient, offering them a chance at life and giving prospective parents a path to pregnancy.

Unlike anonymous embryo donation, embryo adoption typically involves more input from both parties. Donors can often specify preferences—such as religion, marital status, or location—and may even choose to maintain a connection with the recipient family.

Legally, this process is considered a transfer of custody, not a formal adoption. But emotionally, it carries similar weight. For donor families, it’s often about completing a chapter with love and intention. For recipients, it can be a profound way to build their family while honoring the lives already created.

In this case, Linda Archerd hoped to find a loving home for her remaining embryos. Her criteria—white, Christian, married—ultimately led her to Lindsey and Tim Pierce in Ohio.

Related: These twins were born from embryos frozen in 1992—that’s over 30 years ago!

The emotional echoes of a 30-year wait

For Lindsey and Tim Pierce, welcoming Thaddeus marked a turning point, one that opened into something nearly impossible to explain.

“We had a rough birth, but we’re both doing well now,” Lindsey told The Guardian, “He is so chill. We are in awe that we have this precious baby.”

For the Pierces, the experience added a new layer to parenthood. They’re raising a living thread that connects two timelines, two stories, braided together by hope and biology.

Reflections on time, science, and motherhood

A baby born from an embryo created decades ago brings with it an invitation to rethink what a beginning really means.

What does it mean to carry a child whose conception predates your marriage, your home, your very idea of parenthood? In families like the Pierces’, biology becomes something more enduring, something that echoes through legacy.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are more than 600,000 cryo-preserved embryos in the United States. Some may one day become children. Others may remain untouched. In either case, they exist in a liminal space: part science, part potential, part deeply personal. Clinics and faith-based organizations alike are increasingly encouraging embryo donation as a way to reduce that number, while helping more families grow.

Reproductive specialists like Dr. John Gordon, the physician who transferred Thaddeus’s embryo, believe that “every embryo deserves a chance at life.” But not all experts agree. Ethicists continue to grapple with questions about consent, the long-term psychological impact on donor-conceived children, and what we owe embryos suspended across decades.

And yet, in the quiet moments, in a parent’s arms or an old baby book, those questions are often replaced by something simpler: love, recognition, and a sense that something sacred has unfolded.

Related: A womb transplant between sisters led to this history-making birth—and new hope for families everywhere

What would you tell your child about a sibling born 30 years later?

Stories like Thaddeus’s are rare, but they are becoming more possible. And with that possibility comes a wave of personal questions: ones that don’t have easy answers.

Would you want your child to meet a sibling born decades later from the same embryo batch?
How would you explain that connection? Could it feel like family, even if the timing felt like fiction?

Science may offer the means, but motherhood is where meaning is made. It’s in the glances between siblings born a generation apart. In the parents who waited years for a child. In the small, steady heartbeat of someone once frozen in time.

Thaddeus will grow up loved, wrapped in a story that spans decades and lives in the hearts of those who brought him here. 

Sources:

1. HHS.gov. “General Departmental Management”

A preschool Valentine’s Day party. A pair of craft scissors. And one very emotional “first haircut” that didn’t go as planned.

What happened next? A mom’s decision that turned heartbreak into healing—and inspired millions through a viral TikTok.

Alexis Salerno (@lexfsal) shared the now-viral moment after her 4-year-old daughter had her hair cut by preschool friends during a playdate. It was her daughter’s first-ever haircut—and it wasn’t by choice.

“The girls got a hold of a pair of craft scissors from the craft station and cut my daughter’s hair. My daughter is a bit shy and the youngest in the group. She shared with us that while she didn’t tell them to stop in the moment, she didn’t want her hair to be cut. This was my daughter’s first haircut, her hair was down to her lower back, I was distraught looking at her soft baby curls on the floor,” Salerno told Newsweek.

Related: “Is that standard?”: What one viral TikTok haircut revealed about parenting in 2025

A preschool mishap, a first haircut, and a viral TikTok moment

After calling her husband home from work, Salerno took their daughter to a local salon. The stylists tried to reshape what was left of her long curls, but emotionally, the loss lingered.

“Many evenings she cried and asked her daddy to draw hair on her back, asked if he could make it grow back, and would cry in the evenings before be,d saying ‘I don’t feel like myself, I miss myself. I don’t like my little hair. Mommy, how do you spell Please don’t ever cut my hair agai,n friends?’” she shared.

It was a haircut that carried the weight of personal reinvention. So Salerno made a bold, love-filled decision.

“Now she says we both have ‘little hair’.”

Salerno, who had worn her hair waist-length her entire life, chopped it all off into a chin-length bob—and documented it in a viral TikTok that has since earned more than 2.9 million views.

“When I picked her up from school with my bob, her face lit up. She was SO excited. She ran over and gave me a big hug. Now she says we both have ‘little hair’ and she matches mommy,” Salerno told Newsweek.

To help her daughter see the beauty in her new look, Salerno and her husband went all in: a pixie-cut Barbie, playing music by Pink, and pointing out strong, short-haired role models from athletes to actors.

“My husband and I did everything we could to celebrate her new ‘do… and continued to tell her how special she was, no matter the length of her hair and that being different is cool,” she said.

@lexfsal When pre-schoolers cut off all your 4 year old baby’s hair off, you chop yours too so she feels less alone & you can grow it out together #fyp #foryourpage #chop #haircut #haircuttransformation #preschool #toddlersoftiktok #shorthair #bobhaircut ♬ Long Cool Woman – MOONLGHT

Viral TikTok love—and one powerful message

The TikTok video sparked a wave of support and admiration across the platform.

“The social media reaction has been wild! I’m new to TikTok and honestly still learning how to use the platform. People are generally being so kind and supportive,” she said.

She also clarified that the incident didn’t happen at school, despite what some commenters assumed.

“Other people are assuming this happened in school and are blaming the teacher they think is responsible for allowing this to happen. I’ve commented to clarify this happened outside of school,” she explained.

Salerno is clear: while the moment was upsetting, it became an opportunity to model something deeper.

“I fully understand these are young kids and mistakes happen, I think everyone has learned from it. We have been able to teach our girl about resilience at a young age and that we’ve got her no matter what life throws at her,” she said.

And for herself?

“I’m actually really liking the shorter locks, it feels freeing and it’s nice to have a change after 30+ years of the same style,” she added.

Related: When mom leaves for a hair appointment: The viral TikTok breaking hearts and sparking laughter

By now, most of us have heard of Type A and Type B personalities. But TikTok, in all its chaotic, caffeinated glory, has ushered in a new maternal archetype: the Type C mom. And if you’ve ever searched for your debit card in the fridge, used Apple Pay out of pure survival, or offered your toddler the choice between “Daniel Tiger or nap,” then congratulations—you might just be one of them.

That’s the premise of a viral TikTok video by Taylor Vasquez, a mom of two, self-proclaimed “Type C personality,” and woman currently fielding tens of thousands of comments from moms shouting in the digital void: “This. Is. Me.”

@taylorvasquez__ Who can relate? #motherhood #momsoftiktok #momof2 #typec #typecmom #momwithadhd #typecpersonality #adhd #momhumor #contentcreator #microinfluencer @Tide Laundry ♬ original sound – taylor vasquez || toddler mom

Wait—what is a type C mom?

The term isn’t scientific (yet), but Type C moms are quickly becoming the internet’s favorite new identity. They’re loving, attentive, deeply involved—but also overstimulated, semi-forgetful, and so clearly not Type A. Think: late to daycare drop-off but remembered the sunscreen; emotionally attuned but always a little mentally scrambled. There’s a gentle chaos to it all, a lived-in humanness that’s resonating with millions.

In her video, Taylor narrates a day-in-the-life:

“I can’t find my debit card anywhere, but they should take Apple Pay, right?”
“I’m so overstimulated if I hear someone say ‘mom’ one more time, I’m going to lose it.”
“We need to use the free and gentle for Brody’s clothes because he has sensitive skin.”

It’s raw. It’s funny. It’s painfully accurate. And it’s giving thousands of moms a moment of deeply-needed validation.

Related: “Is that standard?”: What one viral TikTok haircut revealed about parenting in 2025

The comments section? Basically group therapy in the best way

With more than 9,000 comments and counting, Taylor Vasquez’s comment section has become a full-blown confessional booth for moms who are tired of pretending they’ve got it all together.

@tschlu wrote: “IVE NEVER FELT MORE SEEN IN MY WHOLE LIFE.”

@ashley chimed in with the rallying cry of the moment: “I knew I wasn’t type A and I knew I wasn’t type B. That’s because I am this I’m type C!”

And @momlifelens05 shared: “I thought I was type A with ADHD… but nope here I am! this is my village ”

Several moms, like @brendylashay, reflected on the deeper neurodivergent undercurrents: “I thought I was a type C mom but after some ChatGPT research I have undiagnosed ADHD ”

To be clear: A TikTok comment section isn’t a place for diagnoses—but it is a place where moms are recognizing themselves, sometimes for the first time. For many, the “Type C” label is less about clinical categories and more about emotional resonance. It’s a name for the mom who loses her debit card, finds it in a jacket pocket from last fall, and still makes it to Target—because that’s where the real strength lies.

Why this moment feels bigger than a meme

Yes, TikTok trends come and go—but this one hit a nerve, not just a For You Page. Moms didn’t just watch Taylor Vasquez’s video; they felt it in their bones. The mental juggling, the overstimulation, the running internal monologue that goes from laundry detergent to “Cars” on repeat—it’s not a punchline. It’s a lifestyle.

And it’s striking a chord in a culture where modern motherhood often feels like a performance of control in a system designed for chaos. There’s no federal paid leave, childcare costs more than rent in some cities, and the myth of the “perfect mom” still dominates Pinterest and preschool pickup alike.

So when a video like this cuts through the noise with real, messy, funny truth—it doesn’t just go viral. It gives language to a kind of motherhood we’ve all been quietly living. And now, we’re loud about it.

Related: Viral TikTok shows toddler melting hearts with train greetings

TL; DR: If you’re a type C mom, you’re not alone

Whether you’re laughing through the chaos or quietly crying into your coffee, you’re part of a growing tribe of mothers redefining what it means to be “good.” Type C isn’t a failure of organization—it’s a win for authenticity.

So the next time you’re watching Cars for the third time while eating crackers over the sink, remember: You’re not a mess. You’re a Type C mom—and finally, you’ve found your people.

Sponsored shoutout to @Tide Laundry, who Taylor tagged in the video, because even Type C moms need detergent that gets it.