We all have those days. Days when everything just doesn’t work out. Days when we look on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok and see people with their perfect lives and their perfect children. And everyone one seems happy in their reels and their photos. The kids are getting along, the parents aren’t yelling, and no one is having a meltdown. Everything. Is. Perfect. We want to be that perfect family. We look at our own life and we wonder why doesn’t my house look perfect, why can’t I get my kids to play so well together, and what is my toddler eating now?!? What we don’t realize is that the reels and photos don’t show the real world, they only show an illusion of what others want us to see.
I was pregnant and had my oldest before Facebook and Myspace were even a thing so with them I didn’t have all the presures that I have now of appearing to be the perfect parent online. I did, however, go through a lengthy custody battle when they were a baby and a few more times throughout their life. I think had social media been as big as it is now when my oldest was little it would have broken me. I tried so hard to be the perfect mother. I tried so hard to fit into a box and I broke. I completely broke because I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was trying to do all the things and be all the things and I forgot about myself.
Forgetting myself made me spiral into a deep dark depression. I struggled for a long time to get out of that depression. I still struggle with feelings of depression, but now I don’t view it as a character flaw in myself, but rather a chemical imablance that I occasionally experience. I will say that anyone who is feeling depressed should go and seek out help and that anyone who is feeling suicidal should contact the Suicide Help Line at 800-273-8255.
Looking back, I realize that taking care of myself would have been the best thing for me, but I was raised that once a woman has a child her whole focus should be on that child and all her hopes, dreams, and hobbies need to be shelved and closeted because now she is a parent. It was okay for fathers to have their hobbies, but women, well, women, they were mothers and that should make them happy and that should be enough for them. That mindset didn’t make me happy, in fact, that mindset made me hate being a woman. I loved my child and I liked being a mom, but I hated being a woman. I had goals that I didn’t want to give up and my upbringing was telling me that I needed to give up my goals because I was now a parent.
Had I been exposed to all of the Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok posts and reels at that time; I would have felt even worse about myself. I would have internalized it and thought I was a bad parent for wanting to be seen as more than just a mom and I think that other parents feel this way, too. We’re so conditioned to think that it’s all or nothing. That we need to shame each other because our parenting styles differ. Taking time to focus on myself has made me a better parent. Yes, I still have days were I lose my shit, but those days are more infrequent and when I do lose my shit I apologize and tell my child that I was having a hard time and that how I behaved wasn’t a good way of dealing with my emotions.
I will never be the perfect mom I see on social media, but I am the perfect mom for my children and they are the perfect children for me. Besides, that perfect mom is the same illusion of the sitcom mom and a stereotype we need to destroy. Our lives look perfect if all we post are our best photos and videos, only humans aren’t perfect. We have big emotions and sometimes we don’t handle our big emotions well. Our houses are not always spotless, we have arguments with our significant others, our children have meltdowns, and sometimes we have crappy days at work. What we need to stop doing is comparing ourselves to each other and realize that we are all doing the best that we can.
Nurturing Positive Connections 