Viral TikTok uses data to show the workload of parental leave

A viral TikTok video posted this week shows one mother making a strong case for parental support using data visualization, augmented reality, and the viral nature of the video-sharing app.  

Shared on her husband’s TikTok account that.data.guy, the video is a recording of a Zoom meeting Kristen Cuneo presenting to her coworkers after returning from parental leave. The TikTok jumps into the middle of the presentation, as she launches a huge data visualization behind her in the Zoom meeting. The data points, representing every key task she took on to care for her child, spin around and change shape until they’re a huge set of numbers (and time) taking up the screen. The video is only 45 seconds long, but is a succinct display of how much work it takes to be a new parent. 

“This is every diaper feed, breastfeed, and bottle feed for the first seven weeks of Autumn’s life,” Cuneo explains in the video, speaking about her 10-month-old daughter Autumn. “Objectively, it’s a lot. And every data point took time, ranging from five minutes for a diaper change to 30 minutes for a feeding on average.” 

The TikTok explains the never-ending workload further. “The real kicker is when it happens. 24 hours a day,” Cuneo says. She makes note of one moment of rest, pointing to a few spots of data in her huge chart. “The midnight bottle feed play by my husband in the third week made it finally possible for me to get more than a three hour stretch of sleep.”

Cuneo’s data spans weeks and shows every time she took care of her daughter.
Credit: Michael DiBenigno / Flow Immersive

The data moves and changes to show the sheer amount of work across time.
Credit: Michael DiBenigno / Flow Immersive

One commenter expressed intense emotions watching the brief presentation: “I am 19 months [postpartum], been back at work for a little over a year, and yet this just made me cry. I wish more people understood,” user @marrytrudeau wrote. 

“I bet if you added in self care, house care, etc. it would just be a solid cube,” wrote another viewer, @supitschels.  

In an interview with Mashable, Cuneo explained the data was shown in a larger presentation on parenting to her coworkers (she works in people operations). It was meant to show just how much work she undertook on her so-called vacation as a new mom, explaining how she spent the first seven weeks with her child. 

She said comments like those above, and the overall intense response to the video, show just how isolating parenting can be. “The labor and love of raising children has often been thought of as invisible. What I love about the use of data in this case, is that in a sort of a weird way, it just helps validate… There might be people who don’t feel seen and heard, because the work that they’re doing is not seen. So I love that the data is able to make it feel more visible,” Cuneo reflected.

Cuneo’s husband, Michael DiBenigno, is the co-founder of Flow Immersive, a data visualization company that focuses on what it calls data storytelling, a way to share personal, human stories through interactive, data-driven augmented reality. Cuneo’s video, for example, used augmented reality to allow her coworkers to scan a QR code and interact with her data set in real time.

A good handful of his TikToks, like his visualizations of COVID-19 data and the demand for childcare across the U.S., received a lot of engagement from online commenters. But it was his wife’s recent, more personal, TikTok that really hit home emotionally for people across the internet. 

“It’s the same data set that I’ve had and presented, but it’s different when it’s coming from Kristen’s voice and from her perspective,” DiBenigno said. The two collected and sorted the data from a baby habit-tracking app, called Glow, which they originally downloaded to keep track of feeding and diaper changing times for easier communication between themselves and their pediatrician. DiBenigno collected the data, which he says any user can do by reaching out to the company, and then Cuneo later used it in her presentation. The interactive data visualization is also available online for curious viewers to interact with themselves.

“Parenting is a great privilege, and I am so appreciative that we get to partake in it. And it’s still work.”

It’s a timely display of parental leave and labor. Congress has been locked in a tug of war over a national paid leave policy in President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion social spending package. In October, Senate leaders excluded a four week national paid leave policy (cut down from the original 12 weeks), to the dismay of many. Earlier this month, House members reinserted the policy. Congress has consistently balked on providing just parental leave, as the country remains one of six countries without a universal paid leave policy. Instead, organizations, celebrities, and politicians continue the call for support on behalf of parents like Cuneo and DiBenigno.

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Cuneo explained that the visuals she used in her meeting and on TikTok were intended to more accurately show these struggles. “Part of the reason I used the data in the way I did was to help illustrate that the time we spend raising Autumn is very chaotic,” Cuneo said. “I wanted to illustrate what was done but also how it felt. I could elicit a more visceral feeling with that — it could help illustrate a sense of reality.”

She also connected the data to the fight for parental leave. “Not to make too much of a political statement here, but when our society doesn’t support parental leave, to many parents who might be struggling it’s like saying, ‘Oh, I don’t see you. I don’t see the struggle that you’re having right now,’” Cuneo said.

With more than 1.7 million views, 250,000 likes, and 2,000 comments articulating similar feelings to Cuneo’s, it appears that the data achieved this purpose. And a few commenters even called on them to share this story with Congress members or other government leaders to show the invisible labor of parents.

“When our society doesn’t support parental leave, to many parents who might be struggling it’s like saying, ‘Oh, I don’t see you. I don’t see the struggle that you’re having right now.’”

As DiBenigno explained, this is the real goal of both his company and his TikTok account: to humanize big ideas and huge numbers. “If you only get the big-picture, macro view, you’re missing the connection back to the human and to the human story,” DiBenigno said. Using this kind of personal data, he explained, is “like bringing the human back into the equation.”

The video also drove home one more feeling that many parents share: raising a tiny human is a beautiful, awe-inspiring task, but sometimes it doesn’t look or feel like how it’s presented online. “This is my perspective. Your relationship with your kid — I can love Autumn and not necessarily love parenting in the way that it shows up on Instagram,” Cuneo said. “I think part of what the data helps with is helping people remember that it actually is work. Parenting is a great privilege, and I am so appreciative that we get to partake in it. And it’s still work.”

UPDATE: Nov. 12, 2021, 2:50 p.m. EST This story has been corrected from its original version to reflect that DiBenigno is the co-founder of Flow Immersive.