A working mom got an unexpected surprise when she went to collect her daughter from a day at her grandparents’ house.
Sophie Cullen, from Liverpool in the U.K., took to TikTok, posting under the handle @itssophiecullen, to reveal the sight that greeted her when she came to get her 20-month-old daughter Maggie.
Much like in the U.S., the cost of child care poses a serious headache to new parents. In 2024, a UNICEF survey of nearly 3,000 U.K. parents with children aged 0 to 4 found 62 percent cited a lack of local, affordable, and quality child care as one of the biggest challenges they faced.
Maggie spends half the working week at a nursery and the other half with Cullen’s parents. It is something the working mom is most appreciative of. “It’s a huge help; it saves us around £1,000 per month extra in child-care fees,” Cullen told Newsweek.
“My mum went part-time when she turned 60 to spend time with the kids and help before they’re in school, and since my dad decided to retire early and work part-time after decades of graft so he’s able to spend time with them, too.”
Cullen said she feels “fortunate” to have her parents to call on rather than having to put Maggie into child care full-time. “I’d literally be going to work solely to put them in child care,” she added. “They love it!”
Cullen said Maggie’s days with “nanny and gan gan” are spent “being treated to days out and having one-on-one time.”
While it might be a benefit economically, it also will have untold benefits to Maggie in the long-term. In 2016, a study published in the scientific journal The Gerontologist found children who enjoyed a greater emotional closeness to their grandparents were less likely to be depressed as adults.
Quite what else Maggie gets up to at her grandparents’ is a mystery, although, if the sight that greeted Cullen when she went to pick her up the other day is anything to go by, she is having a wild time.
Cullen shared a brief snippet of what she saw when she got to the front gate: Maggie, with her hair standing on end, alongside the family dog. It was quite the picture.
“Having that greet anyone going by was disturbing,” Cullen said. “The fact is that she’s stood there of her own accord and the dog, too.”
Cullen said she isn’t entirely clear what happened to leave Maggie in such a disheveled state. “She’s got very little hair, so clearly she’s had a good day, and the sun cream has played a part in that because I still have no idea what she’s been up to; perhaps playing with a socket?” the mom added.
However, her experience appeared to be a highly relatable one, with the clip racking up over 660,000 views. Cullen puts the viral success down to the fact “it’s the reality for most parents.”
“We never pick our kids up the way we left them,” she said. The twist, Cullen added, is the fact she ended up disheveled after a day with her grandparents. “You’d expect that from a nursery, not from 60-year-olds,” she said.
Maggie is clearly having the time of her life.
TikTok/@itssophiecullen
