A Texas woman was stunned to discover that the man sitting next to her on a plane was complaining about how fat she was to his girlfriend via text message.

Landen Ewing, a baker from Amarillo, Texas, was flying home from Nashville a month ago when she glanced over at the phone screen of the man sitting next to her.

The man was holding his phone 'way out in front of him' making it easy for Landen to see that he was moaning about the 'fat a**' sitting next to him, going so far as to joke that Landen was so heavy that the plane wouldn't even get off the ground.

“Some of it makes sense to me, and some of it doesn’t,” Rowland told Martinez during their conversation. “I respect it though, because what general parenting is trying to do is break the generational curse of talking at your kids and making them feel seen and respected.” The singer added that she’s using trial and error to find the parenting approach that works best. “I’m unlearning things that happened to me in my childhood with my son,” she said.

My parents are currently trying to “help” my 29-year-old brother by allowing him to move out to their new beach house and subsidizing his rent so he can get a fresh start in life.

My parents have always seemed to favor my brother, and I was finally able to heal and move on from the hurt a few years ago. I am two years younger and my husband and I have our own house, own two new cars, and have two stable incomes.

I have worked for everything that I have in life, and I am grateful for how I was raised because being forced to earn everything, including my parents affection, has allowed me to have the life I do now

My parents have always supported my brother emotionally and financially. They currently pay for his phone plan, his cell phone, his car loan — after he totalled his last car two weeks ago — and now his rent.

He depends on them for almost everything in life. They are encouraging him to move to get a fresh start on their dime instead of taking a leap and getting an apartment. They are doing this because they didn’t want him to have a mortgage.

Meanwhile, I am finishing my accounting degree before sitting for the CPA (my husband and I are paying 100%), and my parents are encouraging me to NOT get my master’s degree because it’s useless and would make my brother feel worse. They say that we are already married and have a house so why do we need more.

American parents today are also quick to protect their kids from disappointment and failure. We give participation trophies when kids don’t win first place; we fly into the school to deliver kids’ forgotten homework. But these well-meaning interventions backfire because a child with healthy self-esteem is a child who has learned, through experience, that he can overcome obstacles and disappointment. He’s had the opportunity to fail and has discovered that failing doesn’t preclude him from being loved.

A few years ago, the actor and singer revealed that he just wasn’t ready for fatherhood, acknowledging that becoming a dad is a big responsibility that he wouldn’t be able to fully commit to at the moment. He admitted, “I think it’s really important to be present if you have children. I have a lot of...things to take care of.”

Parenting is hard. Parenting in a pandemic that has taken 1 million American lives, through an unpredictable economy, in a country where school shootings aren’t rare, baby formula is hard to come by and classrooms are political battlegrounds can feel borderline impossible.

Parents should consider whether the child has stolen out of a need for more attention. In these cases, the child may be expressing anger or trying to "get even" with his or her parents; the stolen object may become a substitute for love or affection. The parents should make an effort to give more recognition to the child as an important family member.

- tell the child that stealing is wrong

- help the youngster to pay for or return the stolen object

- make sure that the child does not benefit from the theft in any way

In a letter released Tuesday, the groups say that rates of childhood mental health concerns were already steadily rising over the past decade. But the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the issue of racial inequality, they write, has exacerbated the challenges.

"This worsening crisis in child and adolescent mental health is inextricably tied to the stress brought on by COVID-19 and the ongoing struggle for racial justice and represents an acceleration of trends observed prior to 2020," the declaration from the pediatric groups says.

“The repression industrial complex is strong,” Lil Government added. “Many of us grow up being told that discussing sex openly is inappropriate, all porn is bad, dressing a certain way invites harassment, etc. Views like this shut off healthy communication about sexuality, in society and in our own bedrooms, allowing puritanical shame to flourish. With your partners, the fear may be rejection or being seen as weird or fucked up. These fears are valid, and we all must weigh the risks of derision or judgment to find a deeper sense of ourselves and our community.”

I know this is going to sound like a nonproblem at first, but there is a deeper issue that troubles me. Our 16-year-old son is an amazing kid: intelligent, hardworking, and athletic. He is a straight-A student who juggles multiple AP classes with a demanding sports schedule. He is one of the top three students in his class and is also being recruited by college coaches for his sport. But ever since he was in elementary school, we’ve had the same experience at the end-of-year awards ceremonies: He’ll occasionally get recognized for the “objective” awards, like honor roll or scoring the highest on foreign-language tests, but he has never won a single “subjective” award, the ones selected by teachers/coaches or voted on by his peers. When he was little, we would console him by saying “Don’t worry, just keep working hard and maybe you’ll get one next year!”

But after several years of that, we changed our message, instead emphasizing that hard work is its own reward, and that we are proud of him for his diligence and work ethic. I suspect one of the reasons he gets so little recognition is his personality: He is extremely quiet, introverted, and serious. He has a handful of close friends but gets along with everybody; his school tends to be a bit “clique-ish,” but he is one of the few students who has good friends among both the “smart kids” and the athletes.

I’m not concerned about the awards themselves or about him impressing anyone else. Now that he’s older, he tends to brush it off as no big deal. But I just watched him sit through yet another awards ceremony with a forced smile on his face and tears in his eyes as every one of his friends at the table got a special award from one of the teachers or coaches. He sometimes comments about feeling “invisible” because he doesn’t have the charm and charisma of some of his peers. We’ve tried telling him that sometimes teachers like to reward students for their effort since the students who excel in class already get the reward of good grades. But this doesn’t feel right either, especially after seeing him come home exhausted from a three-hour sports practice and then stay up till 1 a.m. studying.

After 10-plus years of this, I can’t help worrying that maybe we should be giving him different advice—instead of preaching self-acceptance, perhaps we should be telling him to adjust his personality, so he is a bit more likable? He is headed to college soon, so maybe I should do nothing and let him figure it out himself?

—Mom of the Invisible Man

Q. Baby, not grandchild: Our oldest daughter is nearing 40 and frustrated by her lack of prospects in having a husband, a home, and a child. Her standards are profoundly high: must make six figures, be 6 feet tall, and no previous marriages or children. She is divorced herself. She is a very driven career woman and works 60 hour weeks regularly.

She announced to her father and me that she will be proceeding forward as a single mother and getting a sperm donation. We were happy but hesitant. That quickly turned to horror when our daughter told us she was looking to move back home with us. Her expectations were that I would be taking care of the baby while she continued her career normally. I love my children and I love my grandchildren, but I am done raising babies. My husband and I are nearing retirement and have plans that do not include diapers and midnight feedings.

We told our daughter this would not be possible and she became upset. She accused us of being “selfish” and denying her the chance of being a mother. My husband lost his temper and told her the only one who was being selfish here was her. She is the one making the choice to have a child and demanding everyone rearrange their lives over it. At this point, our daughter is no longer talking to us but is speaking to her siblings. She is proceeding with her plan and has an appointment at a clinic. If this works, this will be our first biological grandchildren (our son married a woman with older children). It breaks my heart that we might miss this. We tried reaching out to our daughter but no response. She can carry a grudge to the grave. What can we do here?

NPR journalist Michaeleen Doucleff suggests that parents consider throwing out most of the toys they’ve bought for their kids. It’s an extreme piece of advice, but the way Doucleff frames it, it seems entirely sensible: “Kids spent two hundred thousand years without these items,” she writes.

American child-rearing strategy comes away looking at best bizarre and at worst counterproductive. “Our culture often has things backward when it comes to kids,” she writes.

Doucleff arrives at this conclusion while traveling, with her then-3-year-old daughter. During her outings, she witnesses well-adjusted, drama-free kids share generously with their siblings and do chores without being asked.

Q. Catfishing: My daughters have been phone banking, calling Arizona and Michigan and so on to get out the vote. I didn’t want to do that but I felt guilty. Then I read an article in Slate about using the dating app Hinge to get out the vote. That sounded like fun to me, so I set up an account. I figured that there were few people my age (about 70) on Hinge, so I used a pic that was 40(!) years old and pretended to be young, single, and child-free. My state was also in the bag as far as electoral votes were concerned, so I decided to “live” in another state. Anyway, you could say I was catfishing, but I figured it was for a good cause—no one would get hurt, thus, no harm, no foul.

However. I found a match. Of course he is much younger than I am and lives in a different state. But we are politically similar. And we have the same (very niche!) hobby. (I can’t name the hobby, because all my friends who read this column would immediately identify me! But, as a false example, it is not that we both like to read biographies—it is more like we both like to make art with old encyclopedias. So we share this unusual passion.)

Now I want to tell him the truth and be friends. But I know that no one wants to be fooled. Is there any way to break the news—that I am decades older than he is and not interested in dating—that would not destroy this budding relationship?

A new study indicates a majority of teens have increased their social media use during the coronavirus pandemic.

Experts say you can reduce social media use for teens by not allowing them to use devices in the bedroom or sleep by devices.

For many working mothers, Jill Krause’s story might sound familiar. In the midst of the pandemic, she says she became the 24/7 “default parent” that her kids would run to for their every need (and then some), while their dad worked more traditional hours. “My presence and flexibility sent out a clear signal to my four kids: ‘Mom may or may not be working, so cling away! Ask away! Tantrum away!’” she tells InStyle.

Tampa-based, Akemi Sue Fisher had been working from her single floor home with two yappy Yorkies, her 11-year-old daughter, and her work-from-home husband. Akemi, CEO of Amazon Consulting agency Love & Launch, was used to lots of action — early morning international calls, full days of clients and planning — anything the day brought, she conquered with high energy and zest. But when quarantine orders came down, she found herself ill-prepared for the chaos of a full house. She began to look for office space with poor results. Frustrated, she and her husband went to regroup over lunch at a new local hotel. While at the Current (with rates in the $150 per night range), they met the manager, who shared the property’s 20% occupancy rate. Her husband suggested they take a look at a room, and according, to Akemi, it was love at first sight. She struck a deal with the manager for a reduced rate on a room, and signed the lease through the end of the year. Akemi and her assistant quickly settled into their new rhythm. The suite was comfortable and the hotel a constant source of buzz — just the right recipe to feed Akemi’s extroverted personality. “My productivity has gone through the roof — I feel the energy again, and that is exactly what I needed.”