Last week, I went overnight from being a private Pikesvillemother of two young girls to an international headline.
Or maybe I should actually say that about my family, particularlymy husband, Brad, and our 3-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, who have broughtsmiles and laughs to people worldwide — literally.
Here’s some background: For the past six years, I’ve been astay-at-home mother, raising my daughters, Lila, 5, and Brooklyn, 3.5. In May,after freelancing for a couple of years, Jmorebrought me on as a senior writer. I hope you read and enjoy my articles.
Jmore is a greatfit for me. I grew up in Baltimore’s Jewish community and am a Jewish day schoolgraduate, so there’s a good chance we know each other. If we don’t, I guaranteewe have mutual friends.
My routine is pretty much like any mother’s in ourcommunity: I wake up, make lunch, get my girls ready for school, drop them offat school and then either go to the office or run errands.
After I pick up the girls, we head home, eat dinner, spendtime as a family and head to bed. The next morning, the routine starts again,business as usual.
Except, on the morning of Friday, July 19, it wasn’t exactlybusiness as usual. That was the morning our family — just a normal Jewishfamily living in Pikesville — went viral.
And when I say viral,I mean global.
I have a master of arts degree in emerging media from LoyolaUniversity, so I’ve studied the term viral,and I have spent time trying to figure out a strategy to get my content to goviral. But honestly, I never actually thought it would happen.
But it did, and here’s how.
Last Friday morning, I woke up and checked my Instagramaccount, which many people do, to find I had a handful of new Instagramfollowers. Initially, I thought I was being spammed, but it turns out I wasn’t.
Back in June, I covered an early morning event for Jmore featuring Michelle Obama’s chief speechwriter,SarahHurwitz, so Brad took over the morning routine.
During the event, I received a text from a friend with aphoto of Brooklyn. The picture was of my youngest daughter at school in herunderwear. Apparently, Brad failed to notice that Brooklyn was not wearing anypants.
I proceeded to text him, and a lengthy interaction took place.
The whole situation made me laugh, so I decided to post it on my Instagram (@alizafriedlanderjmore) because I felt my friends and family who knew us would find it funny. I wanted to share it because I knew I had friends out there who could relate:
Last Friday, an influential Jewish blogger and author of “Remarkably Average Parenting” named Ilana Wiles (@Ilana Wiles) posted it on her Instagram account called Average Parent Problems (@averageparentproblems). After reading an article on Kveller, another Jewish parenting site, I chose to tag Wiles because, let’s be honest, this was an average parent problem!
Since Wiles’ post, there have been over 42,000 likes and5,400 comments on her page alone. If you have a chance, go to her page andcheck out the comments; they may be the best part. I love how there arethousands of women calling out their husbands and saying they would do the samething.
https://www.instagram.com/averageparentproblems/?hl=en
What happened after Wiles shared my content was something Icould never have predicted! Outletslike TodayShow, InsideEdition and PopSugarreached out to write stories about it. Friends sent me stories they came acrossin The NYPost, DailyMail,TheMirror, Fatherlyand on a local news station in Utah.(Click on any of the links to read the full story!) I even saw it on a popularblog in Australia, and someone messaged me on Instagram that they read it Dutchin Belgium.
I’ve never experienced a post going viral firsthand, and Ican tell you, the experience is cooler and crazier than I could have ever imagined.
I’m thrilled that so many people can relate to the incidentand we’ve been able to put smiles on so many people’s faces. In this day andage, when there is a lot of negative news and information out there, it feelsrewarding as a journalist and mother to be able to provide readers with a goodlaugh.
I giggle thinking I’m just a Pikesville mom, wife and writerwho recently started back in the workforce, and am now making headlinesinternationally.
Actually, if we are being honest, I’m not really making headlines — it’s Brad and Brooklyn who arethe real stars, and I’m happy to give the credit to the ones who really deserveit.
Read Aliza Friedlander’sstory about a Mother’sLove here.
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