14 Snapshots That Summed Up Parenthood In 2014

In January, mom Ruth Iorio posted her uncensored thoughts, feelings and photos during her home birth process on Facebook and Twitter. Her goal, she told HuffPost, was to show "my unique experience, whether attractive or not and just to be honest about it." The result was a raw, intimate, captivating story of the start of a life. Read the rest of her story, and see more photos here.

Early in 2014, a commercial for the Boba baby carrier made moms all over tear up. The touching script included:
I felt you. You were a pea. Then a lemon. Then an eggplant.
I followed advice. I read twelve books. I quit coffee.
Could you tell I was scared?
I talked to you, sang to you ... I wasn't ready.
But then you were here. Ten toes. Eight pounds. Love. Big, fat love.
I held you. I fed you. I realized that I would spend my life doing things to make you happy -- and that that would make me happy.
And then there are the times I want to give up. You've made me rethink my sanity. You've made me want to fall on my mother's feet and tell her that I get it.
But then you smile and you say my name -- and you grab my hand with those little fingers.
We're growing together. We are seeing the world like it's new. I will open my heart and love will rain down all over you. You'll giggle, and I'll do it all over again. And we will walk hand in hand. Until you let go.
I made you, but you made me a mother.

"Frozen" came out in 2013, but any parent of a young kid knows 2014 should basically be renamed, The Year Of "Frozen." A traffic reporter, who happens to be a dad, went viral with his "Let It Go" parody, "Just Don't Go," which he performed on air. Watch the video here.

In April, an advertising agency in Boston posted a fake "Director of Operations" job listing and 24 people responded. Each of those people then sat down to interview for the job and all were shocked at what was required of them: no sitting, no vacations, no guaranteed sleep and zero money.
Then, they found out that billions of people do all this each and every day. When the applicants found out just who holds the title of "World's Toughest Job," some were brought to tears. Watch the whole video here.

In May, a series of PSAs that art students from the University of North Texas created for a school project went viral. The campaign was designed to drum up support for HB 1706, a bill in the Texas state legislature that would protect breastfeeding mothers from harassment and discrimination. See more of the images here.

A commercial created by Verizon was shared all over the Internet in June. The video shows one girl's development from toddler to teenager. She wanders curiously through nature, examines the plants and animals around her, creates an astronomy project, and builds a rocket with her older brother. But all along the way, she hears many all-too-common refrains from her parents: "Who's my pretty girl?" "Don't get your dress dirty," "You don't want to mess with that," and "Be careful with that. Why don't you hand that to your brother?" These statements are subtle, but the ad suggests that they can ultimately discourage girls from pursuing traditionally male-dominated STEM subjects in school. Watch the full commercial here.

Ashlee Wells Jackson and her partner Laura Weetzie Wilson started the 4th Trimester Bodies Project in 2013 in an effort to celebrate how the body changes after pregnancy, "stretches, stripes, scars and all." The images that they posted to their social media accounts were often flagged or removed, so in 2014, Jackson set out on a mission to convince the social networks to #StopCensoringMotherhood by allowing images meant to normalize the sight of real moms' bodies. Read more about her story here.

Photographer Kate T. Parker's sister and brother-in-law adopted her 5-month-old nephew, Sam, in February 2014. "Throughout their entire adoption process, I knew I wanted to document whatever lucky baby we would welcome into our family," she told The Huffington Post in an email.
In a photo series which she calls "Blended," which went viral in July, the Georgia-based photographer captures Sam's first moments with his family. She explained that the project also documents "the power of love, the agonizing wait (and then elation) of adoption, the welcoming of another life into our clan, and what it means to be a biracial family." See the rest of the images here.

In July, 83-year-old photographer Ken Heyman found a box titled "Mothers," filled with beautiful images that he took almost 50 years ago of women and their children. The mothers in the pictures are just as busy as their modern-day counterparts laughing, multi-tasking, rocking and loving their children. See the rest of the images here.

In July, blogger Mama Bean wrote a blog post about a sign that hangs outside a café in the U.K. She described why the sign made her so happy. "In the U.K., it's illegal to discriminate against a breastfeeding mother, but this café has taken the idea of acceptance to a whole new level. They are waving the flag, raising a glass (of milk) and supporting breastfeeding with cute smileys and magical words like relax," she wrote. Readers agreed, and Mama Bean's post went viral. You can read it here.

Leilani Rogers, a Texas-based photographer, launched an initiative called the Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project (PBAP). In anticipation of World Breastfeeding Week, which took place in August, she recruited over 50 photographers in the U.S., Canada and Ireland to take pictures of mothers breastfeeding their children in public places like parks, grocery stores and cafes.
The photographers showcased the beautiful images they captured on Rogers' Facebook page, as well as their own blogs and social media. The collection of images went viral on HuffPost Parents in August. See the rest of the photos here.

In August, Reddit user trapiezist posted an image with the caption, "10th anniversary today, thought we'd capture the romance." The all-too-familiar photo rose to #1 on the site, because all parents could see themselves in that photo. Later, Dad clarified, "Yesterday you saw us at our worst, but I swear it's a good life," and shared a picture of his very happy family. See that picture here.

In an October interview on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Jennifer Garner addressed rumors about her "pregnancy" with the most perfect quote about mothers' bodies. She said, "I am not pregnant, but I've had three kids and there is a 'bump.' From now on ladies, I will have a 'bump' and it will be my 'baby bump' and let's just all settle in and get used to it, it's not going anywhere."Watch the full interview here.

In an effort to shatter the stereotype that dads are clueless and incompetent, blogger Doyin Richards collects images on his Instagram, Daddy Doin' Work, that show what life is really like for fathers all over the world. A collection of his photos went viral in September -- see the rest of them here.