TikTok Mom Has the Perfect Trick for Getting 15 Minutes to Yourself

Parents, raise your hands if you've done any of the following activities alone in the past 100 million days: used the bathroom, enjoyed a treat or talked on the phone for more than 15 seconds? We didn't think so. The sheer lack of personal time (and space) we as moms and dads get has led many of us to resort to extreme measures. Tell me I'm not the only parent who has hid in the bathroom in order to read a particularly juicy entertainment story without being interrupted every other sentence! And I can't be alone in not exactly announcing to my brood when I buy a bag of peanut butter cups.

One mom took a tactic to get a little time to herself to an entirely new and extremely admirable level. The genius parent is a TikTok creator who posts content by the name of flyyoufool8, and in a viral video, she explains her hack for keeping her kids at a safe distance for more than a minute. "Don't open this with your kids around," the poster warns viewers, going on to tease her revolutionary technique. "You can thank me later," the mom tells us.

She then shares how she too longs to shower solo or chow down on chips without sharing. "This is what you do. Put a little splash of bleach in the sink," she instructs. Time to position your mop so it blocks off the kitchen (or another room of the house). Now comes the most important step. Yell out, "Guys, I've just mopped the floors! You can't come out for at least 15 minutes!"

Appreciative parents immediately flooded the creator's comment section to sing her praises for this inventive idea and share tips for carving out a hot minute of peace in their homes. "A good tip for the toddler Mums—Hold up a baby wipe and threaten to clean their faces, guaranteed they run the opposite direction," one parent said.

Asking your older kids for help seems to drive 'em away quickly according to countless commenters. "Put the vacuum on, then watch them disappear for hours. Housework is their weakness," joked one TikTok user. Seconded someone else, "Or say 'when you come out of your room take out the trash.' They will stay in their rooms forever."

To be fair, many commenters said this tactic wouldn't work on their kids, who would instead put socks on to "skate" into the wet kitchen or simply ignore the directive to stay out. Sigh. Sounds like my 3-year-old son, who seems to live to defy me lately! Still, the fake mopping method of making munchkins mind their own business for a moment got my wheels turning.

Perhaps I could combine everything my son abhors by telling him that I'm making a giant salad, his least favorite food, in his bathtub, which he seems to think contains acid, not water and gentle soap. He'd leave me alone in the bathroom then! Of course, this could be taking things a bit far. Maybe.