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I get the idea behind showing what life is really all about. Motherhood is hard. The thing is if you’re a mother especially I don’t think this should come as any surprise to you. And I don’t think constantly harping on the bad parts of motherhood are helpful or healthy for anyone.
When you talk about the negative all the time to those who aren’t parents it’s either scaring them off to parenthood or it’s ticking them off because all you ever do is complain and you made this choice. While other parents might understand and it’s really great to commiserate with one another it can also turn into a one up mans ship of who has it harder. It’s good to have fiends you can gripe about all of the little mundane stuff of your day, but it probably doesn’t need to be posted for the world to see.
I recently read a blog which was fed up with the whole idea of highlighting only the positive. She got up that weekend and posted a fluffy status on Facebook of how her day started, but the reality of her day was just slightly less glamorous and slightly more exhausting. And had she posted how her day really went, it was amusing and everyone got a kick out of it, but it was also extremely personal and almost fell under TMI territory. And it’s one thing when we are TMI about our own self, but when you start getting TMI about others it crosses a line. And our children deserve this consideration when we post stuff.
We Can Share Real Life Without Invading Privacy
I want you to know, I am real with you. I think if you’ve been reading me for a while you know that I’m not all about the fluff. Parenting is tough. I tackle the big issues as they arise in my life. I will not however share every minute detail of my kids lives with you because that is their story to tell, not mine.
Why would we feel the need to share the argument our children had over whether strawberry milk or chocolate milk was better? Why do we feel the need to share every time our toddler screams poop out in public? Are these things we need to memorialize for an eternity so we can look back and remember? I don’t. It’s kind of like taking a picture of the wall how it looked on Tuesday. These are daily things that occur in some shape or form in every household.
We just don’t need to air all of our dirty laundry from our day to day life for the world to read. Putting a positive spin on the mundane or the stressful parts of life can be helpful in getting us through the day. Plus, the internet is forever. If we only post negativity about motherhood our children might read it someday. And it could be hurtful to them. So I think we need to tackle the internet as if we are talking in front of our children.
Maybe it’s because I’m at a point where I am. My oldest daughter is on Facebook. She sees what I post on there. I never want to be the person who brings her down just so I can be real with you about how my day is going. And the fact of the matter is generally speaking our memories contain more of the happy moments than the sad moments anyways. When our children grow up they are going to remember that impromptu trip to Dunkin Donuts to get munchkins and not the fight they had with their siblings on the way to getting to Dunkin Donuts. These are the important moments. These are the things that memories are made of. The times spent hugging and cuddling, this is what we want our children to remember. So why do we feel the need to highlight the negative? So we can make other moms feel not so alone? Well, I have to say I think that’s really silly.
We should all have some sort of private support network (hopefully personal) that we can talk to when we need to get out our frustrations on parenting. We shouldn’t have to do it in public. Our Facebook page shouldn’t have to become this real life daily minute by minute mundane posting of life as we know it. We know motherhood is difficult, but it also has the greatest reward in the end. It is absolutely the hardest, most exhausting, most emotionally challenging job I have ever had. It is also the most exhilarating at times, most joyous, and most fulfilling job I have ever had. I never expected it to be easy and while it has exceeded my wildest expectations, I don’t think we can ever give any mother a true understanding of what motherhood is all about because it’s going to be different for everyone. The best advice I can ever give any new mom is to embrace every moment with a smile because it all goes by so fast.
What is your real life of motherhood like?
