‘Recovering Boy Mom’ Explains Why She No Longer Uses Gendered Term

A woman from California has told Newsweek why she’s in recovery from a certain parenting style.

Holli Grasmeyer took to TikTok to explain why she no longer calls herself a “boy mom”—a term used by mothers who have only sons that recognizes the challenges of the perceived rough-and-tumble nature of raising boys.

“I used to call myself a boy mom because I only had wild, loud, messy sons, that’s all I ever meant,” Grasmeyer said. Referring to content she’s seen online, the mother of four explained how the term has “gotten weird” after seeing phrases from other moms such as, ‘I’ll be his first kiss’ and ‘I asked God for a man and he gave me one to raise’. “So I stopped referring to myself as a boy mom,” she added.

After meeting her husband, Grasmeyer gained two stepdaughters, which prompted her to reframe her thinking. She realized that parenting boys and girls revealed to her that kids, regardless of gender, are full of energy and chaos.

“Boys are wild, boys are playing WWE constantly, they’re messy and they’re wild and they’re insane. And then I met my girls, and I was like, no, they’re just children. They’re all crazy because they’re crazy,” she said in her TikTok video. She added that her daughter’s nickname for WWE is John Sienna, which Grasmeyer is “really proud of.”

Grasmeyer’s clip has gone viral since it was posted on November 27, gaining over 2,700 comments from other TikTok users in the process.

Many found her daughter’s WWE nickname hilarious, while others agreed with the mom’s revelation. “Yes thank you. It’s so painful to see ‘only boy moms will understand how wild it gets’ and it’s just a toddler being a toddler,” one user wrote.

A mom of five girls agreed and shared how she hates it when people assume they like to have tea parties all day when in reality, it’s less peaceful than that. Another recalled the “rude awakening” they got after having her daughter. “I was so excited for dress up and tea partys [sic] instead my life is sports, sports and more sports while wait-listed for track and field,” they said.

Grasmeyer felt affirmed by the reaction to her TikTok and told Newsweek that other boy moms had “ruined” the term from her video. For the mom of four, kids are kids and she’s happy to leave the boy mom label behind.

“Once I started parenting both girls and boys, I realized that all kids are wild in their own way and boys aren’t unique from girls in their energy levels, at least my 4 kids,” she said.