“You should be tarred and feathered”: Mom says she uses ChatGPT to “co-parent” and plan meals, bedtime, and gifts. Now she’s public enemy #1

A mother of a three-year-old managed to brew a perfect storm of hate after promoting how she uses ChatGPT as a co-parent. Lilian Schmidt started posting TikTok videos about this venture in May 2025 and soon stirred up people’s fears and rage toward the proliferation of generative AI and how it’s impacting our world.

These anti-AI sentiments appear to be mixing with long-standing mom hatred to form an intense backlash. That might, however, be the point.

Co-parenting with ChatGPT

Schmidt (@heylilianschmidt) is a corporate brand strategist living in Zurich, Switzerland. She’s also a mother to a three-year-old daughter, but she’s not a single mom, as some automatically assumed. She has a partner who she said “does his fair share,” but also claimed she does all the “thinking” when it comes to raising their kid.

That’s not easy after eight hours of brand strategizing each weekday.

“5:00 p.m. has become the busiest time because I’m racing back from work and I pick up an overwhelmed, overstimulated toddler,” she said, according to the New York Post. “At the same time I’ve got to get dinner ready…it becomes overwhelming.”

@heylilianschmidt The prompt that made my mom life 10x easier👇 As a full-time working toddler mom, life moves FAST. And even with a loving, supportive partner I still often feel like the default parent. Because the mental load? Mostly mine. Four months ago, I hit a breaking point and was like: „Wouldn’t it be nice for a change if I could just turn my brain off and say things like: „What’s for dinner?“ „What should we get Emma for her birthday?“ „Just tell me what I need to pack for daycare and I’ll do it“ „Oh there’s no grocery list yet? How will I know what to buy?“ That day, I turned ChatGPT into my co-parent – and my life got 10x easier. Now, ChatGPT… 🥘 plans a week of healthy meals my kids will actually eat 🛒 writes the grocery list – sorted by aisle 🎁 finds the perfect birthday gift AND helps me write the card 🎒 creates daycare and travel packing lists I can just tick off 🧘‍♀️ lets me finally turn my brain OFF for a minute and breeeeeathe 😮‍💨 And the best part? Whenever I ask it to something, it just… does. No follow-up questions like „Where do I find that?“ or „Okay, but which one?“ – it just DOES 😅 If you’re drowning in mom life and want a co-parent who never forgets the sunscreen or asks you to write things down, you’ll find the exact prompts in the comments! 🫶 This one’s a game changer, mama ❤️ #coparenting #chatgpt #chatgptformoms #mentalload #workingmom #toddlermom #sahmlife #defaultparent ♬ Manchild – Sabrina Carpenter

She said she got ChatGPT to teach her how to make a custom bot that would be more imaginative and better tailored to toddler parenting.

“I get it to act as an experienced toddler coach or a meal planner. I ask it to coach me through the process. If I need it to plan my meals I’ll ask it to assume the role of a nutritionist for healthy kid-friendly meals.”

Schmidt even claimed she uses it as something of a “toddler therapist,” including getting advice on putting her kid to bed. This may set off alarms for some who have read about “AI therapists” going rogue and telling users to kill, but she stressed that she doesn’t use it to replace actual therapy.

Parental burnout is a real problem, but it remains unclear whether ChatGPT could ever be a real solution to the problem.

Genuine AI parenting, or the best rage bait ever?

Schmidt posted her first video about using ChatGPT to direct her life on April 23, 2025. She didn’t start out with the parenthood angle, however. The first video on her account is about “turning ChatGPT into personal TikTok growth coach.” She intended to let the AI guide her to her first 1,000 followers and post about the results.

@heylilianschmidt Can’t believe I’m actually doing this 😅🙈 I’m turning ChatGPT into personal TikTok growth coach to get my first 1000 followers as a complete newbie! Follow along to watch me succeed – or crash and burn 😅😂 #chatgptforcreators #tiktokgrowmyaccount #growontiktok ♬ original sound – Lilian | ChatGPT for Moms

“I’m gonna let it tell me exactly what to post, when to post, captions, hashtags, whatever,” she said.

It only took four more posts before her three-year-old daughter started to appear. On May 23, she published her first video about parenting with ChatGPT.

“I wanna steal your best ChatGPT prompts and AI hacks that make toddler mom life 10x easier!” she wrote.

The caption specifically stated that she didn’t want just toddler activities and meals, but by July, she was telling the world that this is exactly what she uses the AI for. Her videos talk about asking it to provide nutritious toddler-friendly recipes and generate coloring book pages.

Her hook is claiming that this takes 97 percent of the “mental load” of parenting off her shoulders. However, according to Schmidt, it did take some initial effort to get ChatGPT to give her more than stock answers. She claims she “built” the bot she wanted by personalizing her experience.

Now she’s selling exhausted, burnt-out moms the “AI Mom Magic Starter Kit.”

“Snag 7 ChatGPT prompts that simplify mom life, save time & add a little magic to your everyday,” the landing page reads.

These prompts are free—for now. With the level of rage she’s building online, she may soon have people flocking to her TikTok account. If she somehow can’t monetize the attention, she could at least start charging desperate parents for her alleged solutions.

“ChatGPT is definitely a better parent”

If this is all a brand strategy to build a TikTok following utilizing rage bait, it’s going well. When the story appeared on X via the Post on July 30, it quickly attracted fierce backlash. AI critics mixed with your classic single mom haters, too enraged to read the actual article and find out Schmidt is married.

What resulted is a lot of comments saying that if she’s relying on ChatGPT, then the AI would probably make a better parent anyway.

“To be honest, for some people there’s nothing ChatGPT could do that make their parenting worse,” said @SchizoDuckie.

User @longstosee wrote that “on the bright side, ChatGPT is definitely a better parent than a mother who would leave her kids for an AI to babysit.”

“Am I wrong for thinking ChatGPT is probably more fit to raise children than most single mothers?” asked @SydSteyerhart, wrongly.

Along the same lines, some declared that Schmidt never should have become a mom at all.

User @OddOttAllen said, “if you need chatGPT to handle the ‘more challenging aspects’ of being a parent, then i don’t think you were ever ready to be one in the first place.”

Some are so mad about this that they’re ready to burn everything down.

“BREAKING: We have failed as a civilization,” wrote @AlcherusNewsNet. “More on we should just push the Armageddon reset button and let the next generation of civilization in 200 million years try again at 8pm!”

“Yes mama! Feed that baby slop,” wrote journalist Taylor Lorenz. X user @dylanholmes93 had a similar sentiment, writing, “If you do this you should be tarred and feathered.”

The more savvy of the online, however, saw this all coming a mile away.

The Daily Dot has reached out to @heylilianschmidt for comment via TikTok.

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