Mom’s love shirt video of siblings goes viral
Alexis Tillman, melanin mommy of two, knows exactly what to do when her children start bickering.
She brings out The Shirt.
The huge white T-shirt is placed over 10-year-old Dominique and 8-year-old Tyler, pressing them face-to-face. Their arms fit through a single sleeve of the shirt. Tillman, a Melville, Illinois, native sometimes makes them hold hands. Her Facebook video of the “I love you” shirt went viral in March; it received more than five million views.
Maintaining the pair’s close relationship is the sole purpose of her tactic.
In the video, Tillman’s children were slow dancing to BeBe and CeCe Winans’ “I’m Lost Without You” in the shirt. In an interview with CBS News, she said the words of that particular song were relevant for the kids, who often listen to gospel music together.
They fought, Tillman said, over an iPad. She expressed on her original post how important siblings are.
“You’re brother and sister, you need each other,” the mother of four said. “I want them to get along, to stick together. So that’s what I’ll keep trying to teach them. Whatever it is that you’re arguing or bickering about it’s silly, let it go.”
Tillman has deployed her shirt for about a year; she said it’s better than spanking them.
“(The shirt) is simple,” she said in the interview. “It’s a different impact.”