Charlotte and I fight a lot. We fight over clothes, over going to bed, over cleaning up our room. But lately, our number one fight has been about freaking TikTok. I never thought I’d be fighting with my 7-year old over TikTok. I didn’t even think she would know what it is, but this is parenting in 2022 and of course these kids are well aware of social media apps even if they wouldn’t know how to use them. Eric and I will not let Charlotte have TikTok. I have TikTok but I really don’t know how to use it so I rarely open the app and when I do it’s to watch an account of two Australian brothers who fight with each other in funny ways or to watch people make cheese. If you told me my life depended on making a TikTok I would probably die. Charlotte thinks TikTok is an app where you make up dances and while this may be true, it’s not going to happen. We have allowed her to have Messenger Kids because we can monitor it (and one of my favorite things is to go through all of her conversations) and there is no monitoring TikTok. Yesterday while I was on my way home from work she used Messenger Kids to text me to fight about TikTok. “All of my friends have it! I have the meanest parents ever!” My response was “cry about it” so I’m clearly the mature one. I just didn’t anticipate these kinds of arguments would be occurring at this time in my life.

It also makes me wonder what app will come into play as she’s older that’s worse than TikTok. That’s not to say that TikTok is bad but also I just DO NOT GET IT and feel like a serious old person who can’t grasp technology. Our parents definitely had it easier raising us because they didn’t have to worry about the internet like we have to worry about the internet. I really don’t want to have this fight every day but we’re not going to cave to a 7 year old who think she’s going to make dances, put them on the internet and become famous. She’s not even a good dancer to be honest. It’s not freaking happening. So if we have to fight every day, we fight every day. Mean moms unite.