There’s a viral trend on social media that absolutely disgusts me. It features mothers pretending to kill themselves in response to being asked what it’s like to be home with their children during summer break. You read that right: moms miming suicide — often with mock melodrama — all for laughs and likes. The punchline? Their own kids. The setup? The suggestion that parenting them is so miserable, so unbearable, that only death could bring relief.
It’s a dark, disorienting genre of “comedy,” one that’s celebrated by the algorithms and reshared by moms who’ve absorbed the message that this kind of nihilistic cynicism is edgy, relatable, and even empowering. But there’s nothing funny about telling the world — and your own children — that life with them isn’t worth living.
I’m a homeschooling mom. I spend more time with my kids than most people spend with anyone. That’s why I send them to summer camp — both day camp for the younger ones and overnight camp for the older ones. Not because I need a break from them, but because I want them to experience the social joy and resilience that comes from having friends, being challenged in new environments, and developing independence. But I miss them. I find myself counting the days until they come home again. Their absence hurts, even when I know it’s good for them.
So you can imagine the deep ache I feel when I scroll past videos of women who’ve absorbed — and now perform — the lie that children are a burden to be escaped. Those women are missing the very best of these years, and they don’t even know it.
This trend is disturbing for a few key reasons.
First, it reflects a cultural rot in how we view children. We live in a world that tells women that motherhood is a trap, not a privilege. That children take more than they give. That fulfillment lies outside the home, not within it. And when you repeat that message enough times — in jokes, memes, and performative videos — it lodges in your bones. Eventually, it becomes palatable to joke about suicide as a means of avoiding the inconvenience of motherhood. You start to believe that parenting is a burden so crushing that the only coping mechanism available is dark humor laced with despair.
Those without children see this content too, and it impacts their own decisions about having kids. Why would I want to have kids when this is what people say after they spend the summer with their own?
Second, these videos are public. Your kids might see them. Their friends might. Even if they don’t, they will feel the ripple effects of a culture that thinks of them as disposable nuisances. Children are sponges. If they grow up in a home — or a society — where the message is “you ruin my life,” they will believe it. And once they internalize that, the emotional damage is hard to undo.
I know parenting is hard. Believe me, I know. But when did we collectively decide that the answer was to deflect the difficulty with hatred and sarcasm? When did we stop working toward building homes that are joyful, loving, and resilient?
Because here’s the hard truth: if your children are intolerable to be around — unkind, disrespectful, selfish — that is not their failure. It’s yours. Children are reflections of the environments in which they are raised. If you spend their formative years complaining about how much you hate being around them, they will become children you don’t enjoy being around. Children who are raised in love become people who love. Children who are raised with contempt become people who feel worthless — or who treat others with contempt in turn.
We cannot create homes built on resentment and expect to reap joy. We cannot poison the well of motherhood and be surprised when it yields bitterness.
I want my kids to come home from camp not because I’m failing to cope with their presence, but because I miss who they are. I like being around them. I enjoy their company. We laugh together, cook together, read together, grow together. Not every moment is magical, but it’s real. It’s honest. And it’s not performative. I don’t need strangers on the internet to validate my exhaustion or pain — and I certainly don’t need to use my children as props in the process.
The trending joke is that kids ruin your summer. The truth is, your kids are watching. And they will remember what you said — and what you didn’t. They’ll remember if your face lit up when they walked into the room, or if your Instagram said the opposite. They’ll remember if you treated them like blessings or burdens.
And that’s no joke at all.
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