Payal Desai Takes On The Patriarchy, One Funny Video At A Time

Payal Desai is a New Jersey-based mom of two boys who went viral in 2023. A former middle school teacher, the mom gained popularity for taking on the “dusty son” trend on Instagram and TikTok.

When we talked via Zoom earlier this month, Desai was open about her desire to use her platform to help teach boys — and their parents — how to be empathetic, compassionate helpers. Even talking to her via Zoom, I can tell she is deeply empathetic, intelligent, and utterly up to the task of helping all of us parents raise the next generation of boys.

Scary Mommy: Tell me a little bit about your family and starting off being on Instagram.

Payal Desai: I started doing beauty and fashion content on socials in about 2019. At the time I was teaching middle school English, which I did for 16 years. Every teacher needs a side hustle or at least something to relieve your stress. And that's what Instagram became for me.

I was enjoying it. I was teaching. I was doing Instagram, not so much as a supplemental income at that point, but it was just for fun. Then in 2023, some of my content went viral. I posted my first video about the “dusty son” trend. And it was supposed to only be one video. I just was jumping on a trend because I saw this movement of millennial moms and dads posting the specific line of “teaching my son how to cook so that your dusty daughter's Stouffer's lasagna doesn't impress him.” I was like, time out. As a mom raising two boys, this is messaging that I can't get on board with. We are supposed to be the generation that breaks these toxic cycles. How do we rewrite this script?

That's when I shared my video teaching my son to clean up after himself so that your daughter doesn't spend a lifetime catering to a man. That was the video that went mega viral on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. And it was literally that night that I thought to myself, there's something here. There's a lot of this that we're doing in our home with our boys in terms of sharing our domestic labor and the mental load. My husband and I really strive to have equity in our home. He shows up in all the spaces that maybe traditional men have not. He's our chef in our house. He's one to also notice when the laundry needs to go in and all of these things.

I met a man that was very different from the men in my life and what I know to be a traditional man. And I think that's what attracted me to him. It was his ability to lean into feminine traits, and comfortably.

SM: Where do you think that comes from for him? Because that's not the quote-unquote "norm" in a lot of ways.

PD: It's not. And specifically for our culture, it's not the norm. I think that some of it is inherently who he is. And I'll give credit to his mom. His family owned a business, and so she put them to work, and she was like, "On a Saturday, I'm not cleaning the house top to bottom. I'm giving everybody a job." That was sort of their norm, that they needed to look after themselves and even learn to cook meals for themselves because the parents were busy and out of the home running the business.

Anyway, that content really took off. It was hitting people outside of my target audience, which I thought was moms raising sons. Yes, it was moms, but it was also people across the world and women who take issue with the patriarchy, and patriarchal norms that dictate the way that we live our lives, and the structures that inhibit, I think, boys from exploring their full humanity.

Sometimes the videos were surface-level, like teaching my son to not walk up the stairs without noticing what's at the bottom that needs to be taken up. But then it went deeper too because there's also the social-emotional side of it that oftentimes we think that boys don't require that kind of very targeted instruction.

SM: As a former teacher, you have experience with explaining difficult concepts to children. If you're trying to educate someone on how to start with their kids, what's been a good simple starting block?

PD: Well, I think it's about pointing things out. Take notice of leadership structures. In the United States, we have only had male leaders. What do you think about that? So it's not so much of a let me tell you what this is, but let me get you to the answer. Let me get you to your own understanding. OK, so there's only been men as presidents. Women have run for office; they haven't made it. Why do you think that is? And then you lead them to understanding that, well, there isn't really a reason, right? Are women capable of that position? Yeah, they are.

And so pointing these things out, but then allowing them to draw their own conclusions, I think is very important.

SM: Can you give me examples of what you do in your house?

PD: It's letting them figure it out without doing it for them. So, for instance, laundry's piling up in my son's room. He's 9, so we're not going to go in to do it for him. We have taught him how to do laundry. We have stood in front of the washer and dryer and taught him what goes where. It's not an expectation that you're just going to figure it out. We've taught you how to sort things, and then take it out, fold it, put it away properly. That's all the foundation.

After that, at this point, when I see that laundry's piling up, I don't really say anything. And what ends up happening is he'll start doing his laundry and be like, "Well, I ran out of pants." Yeah, exactly. You ran out of pants. It happened. So it's almost like teaching him how to take initiative, but you can't do that for them. Yes, you can remind, but I'm not here to pester. That's not my job. This is your clothing. This is your room. And if things aren't organized for you, you're going to feel a mess.

This doesn't work with every kid because sometimes we have kids who have more specific needs. But I will say for my 9-year-old, it does work. And he does now take initiative in those tasks.

SM: I had my own experience with gender disappointment. What was your experience with it like?

PD: For me, it lasted through the pregnancies. I do think that for many, and maybe even the majority of women, when you meet your baby, that feeling goes away. Not for all. I have talked to women who that disappointment has sustained, and that's really hard. Maybe that might even be PPD, and other hormonal feelings, and all kinds of things that contribute to that. But maybe at the root of it, there was disappointment.

Then I think it's grappling with the way that you're mourning what you thought would've been. When that doesn't come to fruition and it's not what you expected, you mourn that. And that's valid. When the boys came earthside, I was able to accept it. And it's almost like I say these words with guilt, but it's just how I felt.

It would show up here and there. My older son has a really close bond with his dad. And sometimes, I would feel left out. Or if I would see a little girl maybe superficially all dressed up and with a bow in her hair, it would spark something. These things will probably happen throughout my life, but I think the way that I have been able to make peace with it, in a way, is that I have really wonderful relationships with both of my boys.

SM: You started off in beauty. You still do that a lot. What, though, is the end goal for you and for the page?

PD: In this chapter, I have loved being able to reflect on what worked for me as an educator. There's so much overlap between content creation and teaching. That shouldn't come as a surprise because you are planning, you're thinking about your audience, you're thinking about how to deliver these big chunks of information to an audience in a digestible way. When we talk about the patriarchy, it's heavy truths. So to do that with humor and an educational base has been really fun for me. That's why the content, I think, has grown and evolved from that dusty son trend.

So the question's big because I taught for so many years and envisioned that I was going to teach for the rest of my career. Then I got these opportunities online, and I switched gears. And I'm really, really grateful for that. I think that this is the type of content that doesn't really have an expiration, especially as we've seen with this new administration coming in, and the conversation has become more urgent. I find that there is an audience for it. I mean, we're in crisis mode for young men. There's a male loneliness epidemic. Boys are struggling. So if I can bring any amount of truth and understanding, and even if it's just tips, right? That's my goal, to continue to do that, to continue to add value and bring understanding to this topic.

SM: But I think the interesting thing about being a mom in this instance is that you can say, OK, maybe I can't fix the big problem, but I can start with little things that add up.

PD: That's what it is. It's starting in your home. There's going to be so many voices outside of the home, the media, peers, coaches, teams, like toxic culture and sports. There are all of these things, and it feels very overwhelming. But if you can steady your voice in your home and take every opportunity to talk to your kids, take all the opportunities to connect with them, keep coming back to that. When you feel like you're losing them, don’t shove these topics down their throats; no kid responds to that.

What they do respond to is saying, "You want to play a game? Let's find a way to connect." If you can always come back to that core tenet, I think that you will have a pulse on your kids. You're not going to lose them.

SM: I don't really love the term boy mom and girl dad just because I feel like there's a lot to unpack with all of that. But for the sake of argument, what's been a really proud boy mom moment for you in the past year or so?

PD: I think that it's when I see these moments of true acceptance from my boys. So my younger son, who is in kindergarten, likes to paint his nails. We thought that maybe this year he might listen too much to the peers and not want to do it, but he marches to the beat of his own drum and he has continued.

My older son does not like to paint nails. He's like, "My brother can do it. I'm OK with my brother doing it. I'm even OK with other boys doing it. I don't want to do it." So personal choice. That's fine.

My younger son gets mailers sent from Olive & June, our favorite nail company. And I see my older son's interest. He's curious. He goes to me, "Maybe I can try, right? I think I'd want to maybe try."

He said that one evening. And then the next day, he was still about it. So he tried it. That's a proud moment for me because he didn't want to keep it on. He was just testing it out, but it was a moment where he gave himself permission because that's so normalized in our home.

So my older son did that, and I caught it on video where my younger son's reacting. And he's just so joyful and giggling. Then they have this little moment. I think that speaks to the values that we're trying to instill in them of acceptance, and also giving yourself permission to be who you want to be, and try new things, and have an open mind. I want them to have a vision of masculinity that's multifaceted. And when you start to accept that for others, you also accept it for yourself. Then you just can show up how you want to show up in this world.

SM: Yep. That's lovely.

PD: I've told them, I had a student in eighth grade, a boy who came to school and he was wearing a dress. And this boy came in with such confidence. He walked into homeroom, and I was like, "I'm going to put my game face on today because I'm going to have to defend him." So I was very prepared. But he walked in with such confidence, nobody said a thing. It was so evident that he had his family behind him.

SM: That's awesome.

PD: For educators, it shows — who has support and love at home, and who lacks it. It's just who has that acceptance, who is surrounded by that environment, and who is not. So he didn't deal with any bullying that day. He held his own. I told him, "I'm so proud of you for wearing this dress. I think it looks amazing." And he was like, "Thanks. I like it."

SM: That's what you want in a kid, right?

PD: So I tell my boys that story. And the point of the story is that nobody messes with confidence. When you show up confident in yourself, assured of your decision and who you've chosen to be, you're good. You're so good.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.