'You need to start paying me for the stress I have to put up with you': The wildest parenting texts of the week (July 16, 2024)

Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor

Jul 16, 2024 8:00 AM EDT

I miss the days when you couldn't communicate deeply over text. You could tell someone you were on your way; you could say "good morning" and "good night," but that was about as deep as it went. If you broke up with someone over text in 2004, that would've been very unusual for the time period. I remember how hard it was to text back then. You had to hit those numbers so many times to get the letters you wanted, and it didn't particularly inspire me to write any long, dramatic paragraphs.

These days, texting is easier than ever. I could literally copy and paste War and Peace and send it to my loved ones with little effort. Unfortunately, not everyone uses this accessible technology for good. Some people use it to badger their children in unusually unkind ways. These parenting texts epitomize that phenomenon to the extreme.