Mom Uses Clicker App To Perfectly Illustrate Being The Default Parent

What time did your kid get up this morning? How many questions did they ask you before breakfast? And by lunchtime? And, not to be nitpicky, but what even do you count as a “question”? Do you count “Why is Spider-Gwen’s hair pink at the ends?” How about “Can I have a snack?” Because, truthfully, they’re all a little emotionally taxing after a while, right? Adding fuel to the fire, though? When your kid walks past their other parent for the 10 millionth time to ask you for help.

While there is certainly a level of weaponized incompetence at play here, the bigger issue is that you’ve become the “default parent.” (Probably because of the aforementioned weaponized incompetence, but let’s not digress.) You’re not alone in the overwhelming sense of anger this causes. In fact, TikToker @jothemama decided to channel her frustration into proving a point.

In a video titled, “Why moms of young children are consistently losing their mind,” she perfectly illustrates the woes of the default parent — and she does it all with a simple clicker counter app on her phone.

“I have three boys, ages 5, 3, and 1, and I continuously lose my sh*t. Internally. Sometimes it comes out. Sometimes,” she admits. “I love my sh*t right around 2 or 3 p.m. every day without fail. My husband works from home. But he does not lose his sh*t consistently. So, what’s going on?”

Jo set up an experiment. She downloaded a clicker counter app on her phone and tapped it whenever her two older kids asked her for something. She was specific, too. She didn’t count those hypothetical or theoretical questions. She only counted requests: for snacks, meals, the pool, television shows, juice, butt wipes, etc.

Just an hour before she typically loses her sh*t, she glanced at the counter app and to see the tally of a whopping 86 requests — which, by the way, doesn’t count duplicates. So, she didn’t count the incessant repeating of requests until she performed the task. You know, when you’re asked for juice or reminded that you “forgot” juice while you are, in fact, pouring juice into their favorite cup. She didn’t count those.

“They go to bed in seven hours,” she said while sharing the total requests at lunchtime. “I’m not even halfway through the day.”

And default parents around the world let out an “I deeply relate” groan.

“I guarantee you that if I were to ask my husband how many requests a day he gets at work … it’s in the single digits, for sure,” she says.

She ends her video with one of her children coming up behind her, asking for a snack. Followed, as if on cue, by, “Well, why are you sitting there?”

Oof. Been there. You could be on your knees, elbows deep in the toilet, trying to make your bathroom smell less… public, and your kids would still walk past their other parent on the couch (nose to their phone) to ask you to make them lunch.

It doesn’t matter that you already know the “tips and tricks” for not losing your sh*t: count, take deep breaths, remove yourself from the situation. At some point, the higher that clicker count of questions goes, the lower your tolerance level drops. You’re only human, after all.

If there’s one thing this video just reinforces, it’s that what default parents really need is a damn vacation.

Good luck, Mama Jo. This shot is for you.