A rather unique story is sweeping American social media—moms leaving presents for other moms inside baby products.
The story began when Nashville mom Denaesha Gonzalez went to Target and saw a strange yet translatable sight—a silver clutch purse placed on the shelf with the baby supplies.
A mother, Gonzalez reasoned, had picked out the clutch which retailed for $20, but gave up her own desires in order to provide for her baby. Gonzalez posted a video of it on her TikTok account which later went viral.
In it, a long inhale and exhale is followed with the caption: “She Deserved The Purse…To the Mother who chose themselves last, you deserve the world tonight and always.”
The video went mega-viral, being viewed by tens of millions of people, and it launched a spontaneous nationwide campaign to hide gift cards or cash inside boxes of diapers and other projects that was propelled all the further after Gonzalez’s video was seen by Cecily Bauchmann, a “mom influencer.”
She went into a Target and recorded a video of herself buying a $100 gift card, writing a note, and walking through the store to stash it for a lucky, hardworking mom to find.
“Hey! You deserve that special ‘you’ thing. You are amazing!” the note, which she put in between a bag of Huggies.
Bauchmann called it the #shedeservedthepurse challenge, and the Washington Post reports there are now over 150 videos on TikTok under this hashtag—all featuring either women leaving gifts for their postpartum peers, or finding the gifts and—usually—recording a tear-soaked thank you video about it.
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Katie Beach, a stay-at-home mother of a 2-year-old boy and 2-month-old girl, told The Post that the videos affected her deeply.
She replicated Bauchmann’s stunt, doubled then quartered the cash, and left the presents all over the baby aisle.
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“Social media was always an aspirational place where people weren’t really showing the truth,” Beach said. “I think recently, as we all start to show more of the truth, it makes motherhood feel so much less alone.”
WATCH one of the videos below…
@thekatiebeach This is the cutest!! Got the idea from @Kayzie Weedman & @Cecily Bauchmann . Tag me if you do it too! Thank you for starting this @Denaesha Gonzalez #momsoftiktok #momlife #momtok #shedeservedthepurse #toddlermom #stayathomemom ♬ original sound - Katie Beach | mom & lifestyle
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