Start with the real problem
New parents are not short on love. They are short on sleep, time, and clear instructions. We write for that version of you.
Our MissionBuilt by dadsAmerican Kids
We make the new-parent paperwork stack feel less like a random boss fight.
Nobody hands you the cheat sheet. You get the baby, the sleep deprivation, the forms, the deadlines, and the vague advice. We're building the thing I wish someone had dropped in my lap at the hospital.
By parents who already took the notes.
Life is crazy. Life with kids, crazy. And somehow that is the exact moment the system expects you to figure out Social Security, wills, insurance, tax forms, savings accounts, beneficiaries, and a pile of deadlines nobody put in the discharge packet.
I started American Kids after our son Rhett was born and I realized how much of this world assumes new parents have three things they absolutely do not have: time, clarity, and any interest in reading a hundred tabs of bureaucratic mush.
So I did what an engineer-dad does. I made a system. Then we turned that system into guides, tools, and checklists other parents could actually use.
Our Story
A newborn, a government maze, and zero useful instructions.
In 2025, the government announced Trump Accounts, a new program promising $1,000 for eligible kids plus a tax-advantaged savings account. On paper, great. In real life, the website was missing, the process was fuzzy, and parents were left to reverse-engineer the whole thing.
Then Rhett was born, and the gap between the policy announcement and reality got very real very fast.
“The program was announced, but the website wasn't even live. Form 4547 didn't exist yet. I had a newborn who qualified for $1,000 and an older son who deserved an account too, and there was no clear path for either one. I'm a software engineer. If I had to build my own map, other parents probably did too.”
Once we pulled on that thread, the rest of the stack showed up too. Social Security. Birth certificates. W-4 updates. Beneficiaries. 529s. Custodial accounts. Wills. All important. All weirdly scattered. All showing up while parents are running on fumes.
Thomas brought Andrew in, and we started building the plain-English version we wished existed.
American Kids started with one government puzzle, but the mission got broader almost immediately. We want parents to protect their kid's future without needing a law degree, a finance degree, or a free weekend they do not have.
What We're Fixing
The problems we keep seeing, over and over.
Turn chaos into a checklist
Government forms and financial setup are puzzles. We like puzzles. Our job is to turn them into steps you can actually finish.
Only recommend what survives real life
If advice falls apart when you are holding a baby at 2 a.m., it is not good enough. We care about practical, not performative.
Meet the Founders
Built by people who care a lot about not dropping the ball for kids.
T
Thomas
Co-Founder · Dad
Thomas built American Kids after trying to sort through new-baby paperwork and realizing how much of the system assumes parents somehow have time, clarity, and context they usually do not have. He writes from a dad's perspective, tests the guidance firsthand, and keeps asking the same question: would this still make sense on four hours of sleep?
A
Andrew
Co-Founder · Future Dad
Andrew is a mathlete, a former ed-tech founder, and the one who obsesses over whether the paperwork path actually closes the loop. He cares deeply about building systems that help families do right by their kids without getting buried in jargon.
Start with the checklist. Then close a few tabs in your brain.
If you're new here, the best entry point is still the flagship new-baby paperwork guide. It gives you the forms, deadlines, and next moves in one place.
We're building the kind of resource we wanted the first time we were trying to figure all of this out.