Moms know that sometimes, parenting goes hand-in-hand with self-sacrifice. That was the thought that struck DeNaesha Gonazalez when she saw a cute silver purse abandoned in the baby aisle of Target—seemingly evidence that a mom, shopping for her children, had a choice to make.
Gonzalez shared a video of the moment on TikTok on September 4, writing, “SHE DESERVED THE PURSE.” Moms instantly understood. They shared the video widely, and left comments about the strikingly similar moments they’d had in the baby aisle.
The video has since gained over 20 million views in a matter of weeks. And as moms commiserated over the struggle of having to put items back in order to buy necessary kids’ and baby products, some social media users did something else: They started leaving cash and gift cards in the baby aisle of their local store for deserving parents to discover.
It started when Cecily Bauchmann, a TikTok creator with 2.2 million followers and a friend of Gonzalez’s, made her own video about leaving a $100 gift card underneath a box of diapers. “I saw this TikTok the other day and it inspired me to do this,” she explains in the video.
Bauchmann’s video inspired others to do the same, and a new trend was born. Since then, hundreds of videos have been shared using the hashtag #shedeservedthepurse, documenting people leaving gifts for parents in the baby aisle.
As the trend grows, the baby aisle may get a little more crowded. Some TikTok users have made videos joking that they’ll be perusing it for a little extra cash, just in case. To totally negate that risk, some other users have started giving cash or a gift card directly to a shopping mom. “I know, as a mom, we all struggle,” says TikTok user Valeria Rangel as she hands a mom a gift card in a video with nearly 275,000 views.
But there’s a far more pressing issue than money falling into hands of people other than the deserving parents for which it was intended. And that is, in today’s world, parents often have to make tougher choices than putting back a purse.
According to the 2024 State of Motherhood report by Motherly, 27% of moms receive regular financial support from their parents. And almost half (49%) of moms under age 30 do.
Likewise, a Credit Karma survey found that a third of parents struggled to buy back-to-school supplies this year.
Financial woes among parents was one of the major concerns raised by the Surgeon General in his recent report, Parents Under Pressure. In it, he asserted that two-fifths of parents say they are too stressed to function on most days. Last year, 66% of parents said they were “consumed” by financial stress.
Hopefully TikTok keeps doing its thing, and more parents walk out of stores like Target with a little cash in their pocket or something special for themselves. TikTok probably can’t help them with the child-care bill, groceries, or mortgage. But still, witnessing people supporting one another in small ways is endlessly inspiring.