Best of TODAY 2025: Our Favorite Parenting Stories |
TODAY Parents was all about the full spectrum of raising a child in 2025, from learning how to text properly to figuring out why the kids won't stop saying "6-7." We also covered the heart-wrenching task of parenting with a terminal illness and the ingrained worry that doesn't go away even when your children are adults. |
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A mother can never fully rest easy, even after her children have left the nest. Arkansas mom Meredith Thornton keeps her phone on every night in case any of her seven adult children have an emergency, but she dozed off one time and woke up to find a string of missed calls from her son. "My world stopped. My heart stopped," she recalled to TODAY Parents. The problem wasn't nearly as dire as she feared, but her fellow parents related to the feeling after she shared it online. |
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An exasperated Jason Saperstone, 22, wanted to school his parents on the impenetrable world of Gen Z texting etiquette so they could all get on the same page. He came up with a hilarious PowerPoint presentation that began by clueing them in on the correct usage of exclamation points in texts. "Mom and Dad, I love you, but you need to get better at texting," he began the video. The tutorial, which also covered emoji use, even had Reese Witherspoon reacting. "Gosh, I have been doing all of this incorrectly for a WHILE," she wrote. |
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If you made it through 2025 without hearing about 6-7, help is on the way to rescue you from the remote jungle where you've been stranded. The kid slang became Dictionary.com's 2025 Word of the Year after breaking contain from fifth grade classrooms and middle school group chats to leave parents wondering what it's all about. We have the origin story, plus whether there is any real meaning to it so that you can nod your head knowingly when your nephew says it at the family holiday party. |
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TODAY Parents also brought readers stories about the serious side of parenting, including Sara Bennett confronting the overwhelming question of what she wants to leave for her sons as she's dying of ALS. Her answer? Her words. Bennett, 39, shared in October that she created 100-page scrapbooks for her sons Lincoln, 9, and William, 7, packed with life lessons and advice on everything from dating to one day having children of their own. "I'd write a sentence and sob," she told us. "But little by little, sometimes at 3 a.m., I wrote them." |
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Florida mom Daniella Hines was the talk of the maternity ward in September when she delivered a baby boy weighing 13 pounds, 15 ounces — nearly twice the size of an average newborn. Her son, Annan, left her stunned when she got her first look at him. "He was so big. I was like, 'Whose baby is this? He came out of me?'" Hines said. |
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