If you or a loved one is sick and tired of being sick and tired, rest assured that you aren’t alone. Inflation is on the rise and the economy seems to be going down in flames.

Nevertheless, we persist. And if nobody’s told you today — I’m proud of you for waking up and giving it your best.

After all, we could all use a little encouragement every now and then. Let’s take viral TikTok teen mom @alexis_marie125, for example.

No matter how much money you have, I bet you’ve eaten a struggle meal or two in your lifetime. But Alexis makes five-minute feasts for her kids look like gourmet dinners.

In a viral video, Alexis — who is a teen mom of two toddlers — shared what she feeds her kids for dinner. On her kids’ plates were a handful of BBQ potato chips, pizza, and a side of fresh mixed fruit that she cut up by hand.

In other TikTok videos, Alexis prepares the kids’ breakfast and lunch, too. In fact, preparing “lazy 19-year-old mom” meals for her toddlers is kind of her niche.

Needless to say, not all parents would agree with Alexis’s meal plan for her kids. However, the realists in the room could relate. Instead of criticizing her, commenters flooded the post with uplifting words. “My son has Taco Bell and a donut for dinner. You’re doing great!”

“I had my first son at 16 and had my daughter at 20. They are 30 and 27 now,” @valleygurldragon wrote. “Time goes by so quickly. Cherish these meals. you’ll remember them fondly.”

Another TikTok user echoed those sentiments. “Good job, at least they’re fed! My parents did the same thing as we were growing up,” they shared.

“Fed babies are happy babies, and props for cutting the strawberries and everything, sometimes I don’t have the energy for that,” @dumgf added.

“What a nutritious dinner,” one user wrote.

While another added: “So healthy and nutritious.”

Alexis’s following is mostly supportive of her videos. And then, there are others, such as myself, who question whether or not Alexis’s kids have a balanced diet. To this, Alexis says: balance, schmalance.

“I know that I make a lot of people mad by what I choose to feed my kids. I feed them what I know that they like and what I know that they will eat,” Alexis explained. “Now, I’m not saying that I don’t introduce new foods to them. But if I see that they don’t like the food that I am giving them, I take a break and I don’t force that food onto them.”

The TikToker recalled: “As a kid growing up, I would be forced to eat something that I didn’t like, I would have to sit at the kitchen table until I ate the meal. And dealing with that, I became a very picky eater.”

“I was afraid to try new foods,” she added. “I don’t want to force my kids to eat stuff that they don’t like. I don’t want them to go through what I went through. As long as your kid is fed, that is all that matters.”

While some parents live in food deserts and are forced to feed their kids fast food out of necessity, Alexis is just feeding her kids junk because it’s easier. And I don’t know about you, but I have a problem with that. What do you think? Can a kid survive off McNuggets alone?

Let us know!

At the beginning of their most recent video, Paul and Lizzy explain that Ben decided to leave Fab Rats in order to spend more time with his family. They said that while they were sad to see him go, they understood his decision, and said he still might pop up on the channel occasionally. The era of Ben appearing in videos regularly is over, though. Part of the reason is that his family lives pretty far away from where the videos are filmed.

In a separate post on Instagram, the Fab Rats made a similar announcement addressing Ben’s absence.

“Change can be hard and this has been one of the harder adjustments for us all,” the statement says. “We sure are going to miss having this guy in the shop but family is important and Ben’s family needed him. Lucky for us, we have Hunter and Sean around to help with all of the awesome upcoming projects.”

“Thanks to all of our amazing viewers/friends/Fab Rats family for the love and support you have given us. We appreciate you all more than you know,” the statement concluded.

It’s unclear whether there’s any tension between Ben and the rest of Fab Rats, but publicly it seems like Ben just wanted to spend less time at the shop and more time with his family, which is a choice all of us have to balance.