Dear Perfect Mom Bloggers/Influencers,
We all follow you, waiting for wisdom to trickle down to us “regular moms” through social media, podcasts, websites, live chats and e-newsletters. But is your message on the up and up?
You claim you are imperfect also, and that you struggle with dishes, bedtimes, colic, teething, teenage attitudes and messy bedrooms. But somehow, your Instagram feeds are full of high design houses with kids “messing up your living room” (aka setting two pillows on the floor, making a “fort”). Let me just tell you, that is not a fort. That is the floor of a fort. Your kids have a ways to go there.
You claim to be nursing one kid while cooking dinner and waiting for a load of laundry to dry while brainstorming your next podcast and updating your blog. But that’s physically impossible, and I know because I tried after seeing you do it, thinking that’s what real moms must be able to do. So what are you not telling us?
You claim to not have a single piece of your wardrobe that doesn’t fit perfectly because you have methodically Kondo’ed every piece that doesn’t spark joy. Is that true? Not even one little t-shirt in the back covered in paint or not well-fitting for those crappy days when you really don’t care? I strive to be you. But then what will I wear to paint in? Or to roll down a muddy hill with my kid?
We all spent high school and maybe college looking up to someone we wanted to be, and momming is no different – we all have a blogger mom or a social media influencer who we strive to be. But what’s behind these moms? How many have house cleaners and personal assistants buzzing around behind them as they lounge in their pajamas homeschooling and cleaning and having an awesome attitude at 7 a.m. Worse yet, what if they don’t? Have we failed?
I don’t know a single mom who is satisfied with their house, their body, all aspects of their relationship, and their kids’ attitudes. Not a single one. Could it be that our role models are making “successful mothering” completely unattainable? They claim to have really been through tough times, but are they sharing those tough times with the moms following them? We need to examine where our influencers are coming from, what they value, and if their Instagrammable mom lives are even what we should be striving to achieve.
Thanks for listening,
The regular moms
