Have you ever had it with parenting? The answer is yes, we all have. Even though we love our children with every fiber of our beings, there are days when we are just done with a capital D. It is perfectly normal to be at your wit's end, and it doesn't make you a bad parent if you are having one of those days. We've all been there, and we aren't judging anyone.
Mom Ashley Knotts had enough of the bickering between her two young boys, so she thought she'd teach them a lesson. She took the toy causing the argument and tossed that sucker right off the deck. She shared the video on her TikTok, @ashleynorfleet, where it amassed an impressive 8 million views. We can't lie; the second it appeared on our For You Page, we liked it, shared it, and reached out to Ashley for the story.
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The clip is so real.
The video is only five seconds long, but they are five of the most satisfying seconds you'll ever watch. Ashley's home surveillance video shows her back door open, and then the mom hauls a blue ride-on toy out to the edge of the deck and throws it with all her might.
We can hear a child screaming in the background; honestly, it sounds like every other family's house we've ever been in. Ashley knew it, so she decided to share the moment with the world.
She had no idea the video would be such a viral hit.
Ashley tells CafeMom she was with her sons, who are 3 years old and 4 years old, and it was a very familiar scene.
"Constant fighting over the same toy when they both have one each," she says.
In her TikTok caption, she warns other people, "Don't come at me. The toy doesn't even work anymore, and the kid in the background is crying because his big brother pushed him off of it for the 15th time! Can anyone else relate?"
Yes, so many of us can relate.
As we said before, we were so glad to see this on our FYP because this is real life. Plenty of parents in the comment section praised Ashley for being a real mom.
Oner person wrote, "Great amount of self control exhibited here by an exhausted mother. Notice how she restrains from yeeting the children over the fence and instead hurls the hunk of plastic instead. What an amazing mom."
This mom felt seen: "this comment section passed the vibe check. I'm glad I'm not the only parent yeeting toys to oblivion ."
Her athletic ability was impressive. "Ma'am threw that truck over that balcony like she was Mahomes ," one person wrote.
Other people had experienced the same kind of thing as kids.
"My dad threw our Tamagotchi in the river because we were fighting over it and the older I get the more I respect that ," someone else commented.
Ashley knew she'd hit a nerve with other parents.
She tells CafeMom she was very interested in what other parents would think, but she had no idea it would go viral. She says that most of the comments section knew exactly how she felt.
"[I] never expected everyone to agree. There were some hate comments but the moms quickly attacked them for the hate," she says.
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Ashley has zero regrets.
Although she never expected her parenting style to be such a hit, she would do it all over again. She has some advice for other parents, too: "When the kids are fighting over the same toy, just take the problem, the toy, and dispose of it. Lol," she says jokingly.
Ashley we can't lie. This one of the best TikToks we've seen in a long time. You've given us the courage to take those darn toys, give them a toss, and show those kids whose boss. As you say, "It had to be done."
