A Mom Was Accused Of Trying To 'Raise A Frat Boy' After She Shares Her Baby's Nursery Decor—'She's Raising A Finance Bro And I'm Terrified'
Her aesthetic is her choice, but no one wins by adhering to extremely rigid gender roles.
TikTok & Instagram Having a baby means getting ready for your life to shift. There’s so much planning that goes into welcoming a new member into your family, with designing a nursery often being a top priority—after all, it’s where moms and babies spend the majority of their time in those early, tender days.
One mom from Ohio showed off her nursery decor on TikTok, only to incur the internet’s wrath for her chosen aesthetic.
Amanda Stein describes herself in her TikTok bio as a “mom with babies and dogs who loves home decor and Amazon too much.” In a post titled, “When someone says ‘you can’t be a minimalist if you have children,’” Stein revealed her decorating choices for her baby’s nursery.
Amanda Stein’s followers accused the mom of ‘raising a frat boy’ after she shared her baby’s nursery decor on TikTok.
The color palette for the nursery is slate blue, gray, black, and white, muted colors that led one follower to claim, “sad grey room for sad grey babies.” A cream-colored armchair sits beside the crib, a bold choice for anyone with a baby, who certainly do their fair share of spitting up, among other bodily functions.
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The walls of the nursery are decorated with posters and decals of sports plays, giving the appearance that Stein tore pages from a college coach’s playbook. Instead of a bureau with a designated space for changing diapers, there’s a row of lockers.
The baby activity gym Stein chose is less of a play structure and more of a wooden stand with a few wooden objects hanging from it, which the baby can grab onto once they develop that skill, yet the toy lacks any visually stimulating images, a feature of newborn toys that’s important for babies to have. The American Academy of Opthalmology explains the importance of bright colors for infants, stating that “at about 1 month, your baby may focus briefly on you but may still prefer brightly colored objects up to 3 feet away. Infants are able to see across a room even at birth, but they are mostly interested in objects very close to them.”
Yet the real feature of the room is the sign hanging above the crib declaring, “Saturdays are for the boys.”
“I wouldn’t trust this room with my drink at a bar,” reads the post’s top comment. “You’re raising Nate Jacobs,” noted a few followers, referring to the Euphoria character played by Jacob Elordi, a character who represents a toxic form of masculinity.
“Is the nursery theme college frat?” Asked one person, to which Stein replied, “Yes!” It remains unclear if Stein was being earnest with her answer or whether she was poking fun at herself and her followers.
A 2020 article written by Students 4 Social Change reported disturbing statistics regarding the correlation between Greek life on college campuses and sexual assault, claiming that “women in sororities are 74% more likely to experience sexual assault on a college campus than women who are not involved in Greek life. Fraternity men are 3 times more likely to commit rape than their non-Greek peers.”
Someone else commented on the misguided nature of the nursery’s aesthetic, noting, “The way that’s simultaneously not minimalist and also extremely corporate is crazy.”
Stein seems to have doubled down on her creative vision in light of all the hate she got online, reposting TikToks of the nursery captioned, “The opinions of strangers,” and “Baby frat boy?”
No one deserves to be dragged online, yet Stein presents herself as a public figure on the internet, so she shouldn’t be too shocked that strangers shared their thoughts on her nursery decor. Setting aside the idea that a nursery should be a space with developmentally appropriate features for babies, the room Stein designed appears to cater more to her own aesthetic vision than the needs of her baby.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. As a former postpartum doula, she covers parenting issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.