'This Is How We Do' Parody: Two Minutes of Suburban Mom Reality

When photographer and blogger Brenna Jennings asked eight friends to guest star in a video parody of Katy Perry’s “This Is How We Do" that’s a sendup to a day in the life of a crazed suburban mom, every single mother said yes immediately.

This hilarious video debuted Thursday and moves quickly from one mom scene to another — sipping cold coffee and tossing frozen waffles to the kids, breastfeeding at a desk, and, in perhaps the most relatable moment of all, getting edged in the head when a kid crowds into bed. The lyrics are equally fun, dedicated to “all the ladies in last night’s makeup at drop-off” and to the moms who are still wearing their Saturday yoga pants — “on Tuesday.”

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“I wanted to do a fun shout-out to moms,” Jennings, who blogs at Suburban Snapshots about her life as the mom of a 6-year-old daughter, tells Yahoo Parenting. “I wanted to show that we take care of business. We get things done.”

It took Jennings three and a half weeks, from conception to final filming, to create the video. It’s gone viral since first appearing online, having been viewed on YouTube by nearly 17,000 people and counting.

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The project was inspired by Jennings’s daughter and her niece, who both listened to the song over and over again. “As soon as I heard it, I started writing the fake lyrics in my head,” she says. “It just clicked in my brain.”

Jennings also likes to think the video could help dispel some of the biggest misconceptions of life as a suburban mom. “We’re always depicted as being catty, bored, up in each other’s business, or sitting around eating bon bons all day,” she says. “It’s easy to stereotype us if you’re not a parent or if you’re not a suburban mom.”

From Jennings’ perspective, none of those generalizations are true. “We really have fun, we have genuine friendships, we’re creative, and we work our rear ends off,” she says.