"I started doing beauty and fashion content on socials in about 2019. At the time I was teaching middle school English, which I did for 16 years. Every teacher needs a side hustle or at least something to relieve your stress. And that's what Instagram became for me. I was enjoying it. I was teaching. I was doing Instagram, not so much as a supplemental income at that point, but it was just for fun."
"I posted my first video about the "dusty son" trend. And it was supposed to only be one video. I just was jumping on a trend because I saw this movement of millennial moms and dads posting the specific line of "teaching my son how to cook so that your dusty daughter's Stouffer's lasagna doesn't impress him." I was like, time out."
"That's when I shared my video teaching my son to clean up after himself so that your daughter doesn't spend a lifetime catering to a man. That was the video that went mega viral on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. And it was literally that night that I thought to myself, there's something here. There's a lot of this that we're doing in our home with our boys in te"
Payal Desai is a New Jersey mother of two and a former middle school English teacher who taught for 16 years. She began posting beauty and fashion content on social media around 2019 as a creative outlet and side hustle. In 2023 a video confronting the 'dusty son' trend—showing her teaching her son to clean up after himself and learn domestic skills—went mega viral on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. The viral content emphasizes teaching boys empathy, compassion, and practical household responsibilities to prevent daughters from being expected to cater to men and to break intergenerational toxic gender norms.
Read at Scary Mommy
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