Today has been a great day. I cleaned all of my bathrooms, mowed the yard, folded three overflowing baskets of laundry, made mini muffins to freeze for the girl’s breakfasts, and put together the party favors for Nora’s birthday party that isn’t until November. (Do you hate me a little bit right now?) I did all of this before 1pm so that I could relax and watch the Bengal’s game on TV. The girls have been on their best behavior and are currently working together on a few giant floor puzzles while I write this blog post. Today is the stuff that great facebook statuses are made of.
For the record, I didn’t post anything on facebook, despite how tempting that can be. I realize that no one really cares how productive I have been in my day. And really, what do I accomplish by sharing with the world that I crossed a few things off of my to-do list? Still, we all do it from time to time (some more than others). Perhaps we like having the people in our virtual world tell us how impressed they are with our amazing mothering and housewife skills. Who doesn’t want to hear that? It could even be that we like the person we create (however unintentionally) online. You know what I am talking about… your social media alter-ego who always has cute kids, healthy perspective or is celebrating some personal or familial accomplishment.
If everyone continually posted on facebook or twitter about the rough days, the challenges, the failures or the disappointments, everyone would stop logging on. So, we don’t do that. We talk about that really adorable thing our kid said or that moment when we felt like super mom. And there is nothing wrong with that. The bottom line is that facebook is entertainment, not reality.
I can’t tell you the number of times that someone has told me (based on the epically reliable facebook research) that I am a good mom because I am constantly engaging my kids in some way. I “always” take them on adventures and do craft and cooking projects with them. And yes, this is true… I do try to engage my children. But if you look only at my life on facebook, you might be tricked into thinking I am secretly the Martha Stewart of motherhood. So, I caution all parents to remember that social media is a very small snapshot of a person’s life and is 100% what that person chooses to present to the world. It is biased and incomplete.
I have no intention of defaulting to posting statuses every time I have a bad day or in which I tell you that my children watched movies all day because I only got three hours of sleep the night before. But, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I too fall victim to the overwhelming urge to judge myself against the standards I see on facebook. But, that is unfair as those expectations are impossible for everyone to live up to all the time. For now though, I am going to choose to be content with how THIS day has gone so far. And I don’t care what social media has to say about it.
Thank you so much for this post! I have been feeling this a lot lately. I have recently been putting myself down or feeling incompetent because I may not live up to everyone else’s “standards” but I really enjoy that you said that Facebook is just a snapshot into someone’s life! Such a true statement. I wil try and remember this more often when I see things that make me feel like inadequate!