Facebooking

I follow a lot of mommy blogs, mommy Instagrams, and mommy Facebook pages. I love getting tips on big family travel, mommy fashion, easy recipes, activities for busy families. I love blogs on home décor, especially if it is ran by a mom who can marry function with fashion. I love photography blogs that talk about techniques or who capture the every day in a simplistic and beautiful way-- a different way to look at things that I see day in and day out.

A common theme that I see creeping up more and more is accusations of "Facebooking"-- only showing the good, the fake and staged moments, the ideal that even the moms behind the blogs don't live.

"Instead of a beautiful, clean room, why don't you show what it looks like after your kids have been playing in it for an afternoon?"

"Instead of all the staged photos of your kids, why don't you show what a day with them is really like?"

"Why are all these ads on here? This isn't even your real life. Unfollowing."

And the bloggers will sometimes acknowledge this or explain why they have ads. Or maybe they give a caption under the beautiful photograph, "This is my son looking out the window. I love how the light was reflected on his face. Two minutes later he was throwing a tantrum in the middle of the [unpictured] family room that is absolutely a disaster, covered with Matchbox cars and of course a wall he took a marker too as I edited this..."

Loyal followers will defend their favorite pages, "If you don't like what you see, don't troll. Just keep scrolling."

Ah, it's a mess. I've been accused of "Facebooking," showing only one side of the story, not what my everyday life is. I've tried to make my blog and my Instagram and my Facebook "more real."

What is real?

Because if I lay it all out, I'm oversharing. I'm opening up about stories that aren't always mine to share. My children are individuals and I talk about being their mother a lot and I touch on subjects that matter to them, but at the end of the day, some of the story is theirs and not mine. I can't divulge all of the challenges my children face, especially as they get older.

When I talk about a hard day, a hard week, a hard time, I'm an overwhelmed harried mom.

"Maybe you shouldn't have had so many kids."

"It can't be that bad because your hair still looks nice."

"If your kids are actually sick, why aren't you at home?"

"Can't you get a baby-sitter or a nanny?"

I'm not talking about the comments with good intentions and the comments that really are suggestions and shows of support, people who know me and who genuinely care. I'm talking about the people that follow my social media to roll their eyes and to criticize.

It feels like sometimes with social media there is no winning. Posting pictures with friends makes other people feel left out. Posting only the good moments is fake. Posting the tough stuff is oversharing or complaining or makes everyone jump in with advice you aren't really asking for.  If you voice an opinion online, you are being too political. If you stay silent, you are passive. If you disagree, you are trolling.

It feels like I seek the middle ground and somehow I still manage to hurt feelings.

"Well, then get offline," you say.

I did. I got off Facebook for over 6 months. I wanted to shut down my account, but I love the TimeHop updates of my kids and so I unfriended nearly everyone, changed the privacy settings to Only Me, and changed my profile picture and cover photo to a slogan that said, "I'M OFF FACEBOOK."

I was taking everything online personally. I felt left out from what I was seeing and felt like everyone was reading everything I posted wrong. If I posted a song, I would get messages, "Is this about me?" It got to be too overwhelming.

This all happened during a time what I was battling depression and I think that is the big reason why I felt like my social medias were exceptionally stressful. Getting off of Facebook and unfollowing and unfriending everyone besides my family and best friends really helped me take a breath and focus only on getting myself centered-- not what people said to me online or how I was reading other people's posts.

After I started feeling more certain of myself, I dipped back in to some of my socials, following my mommy blogs, etc. That's when I started noticing that a lot of the people I followed were getting similar accusations.

"How can you have a hard time when you only show how put together your life is?"

"You aren't portraying real parenting because you only show how perfect everything is."

I started sharing a lot more about my whole story, what I had gone through, the challenges we had faced and the things I was still working on overcoming. My fears. My worries.

And you know what? Not a lot changed.

Well, that's not entirely true.

Talking about them was a release. I felt like a lot of those challenges I had inwardly processed, talked about with my friends and family, and taken time to think and pray about them. They were things I worked on accepting and forgiving. Taking to a public forum and speaking about my own personal experience and my own personal feelings felt like a chance to exhale. To open my hands and stop holding on to these things so tightly, finally releasing them and leaving them where they belong-- in the past. These challenges are part of my story. They have changed me and shaped me. But they have worked on my fortitude, my perseverance, my character. They aren't present problems. They are things that I have forgiven, accepted, and moved on from. I may have moments where the crippling panic sneaks back in or when I feel weak or angry at all the things thrown at us at one time. But, I breathe in and breathe out and remind myself of who I am now. Where I am now. What I'm working towards now. Vocalizing it as the past on those outlets was freeing. Because it is my past, not my present, and Lord willing not my future. I have had hardships the past couple years that, thank the Lord, we have made it through.

What didn't change is that the people who supported me through that time knew all of me, all the deep dark hidden parts that I couldn't quite share. All the struggle under the surface. They knew what a struggle each day was, to put one foot in front of the other, and, not just that, but get all my children's feet in line as well. To make their meals and do their laundry and their school pick up and drop off and homework and reading logs when I was being crushed by anxiety and depression. When I felt like I was sinking each and every day. They knew that story.

I think some people on my socials didn't know the whole story and maybe they didn't read all my posts, but the posts weren't for them. The posts were for me, to release what had been pressing on my chest.

What does this have to do with mommy bloggers and Instagrammers?

One thing that I have learned through the past 3 years at this duty station and all of my miscarriages and years spent trying to get pregnant and through the ups and downs in my marriage and in parenting and being a woman trying to figure all this out... is we all have stories, parts of ourselves we tuck away. We all have things under the surface. We all have a past. We all have struggles. Heck, we all have people who don't like us.

But what makes us special is where do we focus? What are we dwelling on? What are we seeking? What are we cultivating in our own lives? What is the message we are trying to share with others?

I started taking a hard look at the kinds of parenting blogs that appealed to me. That's when the pieces started clicking a little more for me. We all make a choice as to what we want to share with the world, even if we aren't on social media. We all choose how we want to dress, how we want to wear our hair, the kinds of responses we give in conversation. We all internalize things differently and we all take notice of the things around us in different and unique ways.

The mommy blogs I follow don't sweep everything under the rug. No, they aren't ignoring the tantrums or pretending their children aren't perfect. They don't "whine" about hard days for the sake of complaining or because they hate being parents.

Instead, the kinds of blogs I follow focus on the bright moments. The toddler might be throwing a fit, but look at those perfect little hands reaching up for me, the hands that I waited my entire life to see. The hands that I want reaching for mine for the rest of my life. I may be "touched out" by 3 pm and still have to get through the evening rush with school pick up, swim lessons, homework, dinner for 5 kids, and the bedtime routine... but there is not one other place I would rather be. There are no other faces that I want to look into each day, no other people I want to see grow each and every day in small and imperceptible ways until suddenly they are breaking down obstacles and conquering hurdles in truly amazing ways that make so unbelievably proud. There are no other people I want to shine for, push myself for, work tirelessly for, be an example for. There are no other people I want to stay up all night with, cleaning vomit off the floor, doing another load of towels, and praying that at least one of the kids won't catch it and, Lord please, that I don't catch it (as we all promptly come down with it). There just isn't anywhere else I want to be and my heart bursts with love for these growing people I am blessed to be the mother of.

Parenting is a giant mess. The people that we love the most, that we cherish the most, are the very people that drive us absolutely crazy. The days are so hard, the moments excruciating to get through sometimes, and it feels like the hours stretch endlessly, on and on, until suddenly you blink and years have gone by and you are left wondering how it all slipped through your fingers that fast.

Parenting is putting in hour after hour, shift after shift of hard work to see no results, to only see backsliding or worse behaviors, and then have a stranger or a teacher or a baby-sitter comment on how well behaved your children are and you think, "My kids?!" But you listen more and realize that maybe all that hard work is paying off. Maybe you aren't failing as much as you felt you were.

That's another thing parenting is... that constant feeling of failure. It feels like you are doing it wrong. It feels like maybe it should be easier, maybe some things should be harder, maybe there is a proper and correct way to get a certain task done... "Am I doing it right?" "Is my kid the only kid who struggles with this?"

Parenting feels like a lonely isolated island where you have to protect the inhabitants while they simultaneously are trying to kill each other.

That's where I feel like social media is handy. I love seeing what other people focus on, the positive spins they put in their day. The funny parenting memes. Even better, I love seeing the beauty in other people's families. I love hearing about other people's parenting victories. Because when a parent rejoices in a victory, that means there is a long backstory of attempts and failures behind it. When a child reaches a milestone, that means there was growth.

What it is about is seeing and appreciating the unique perspective of other parents and letting people's social media reflect their individuality. We all have backstories. We all have parenting challenges, and, in a lot of ways, a lot of our parenting challenges are universal. Of course everyone struggles differently with these ups and downs-- we bring our own personalities in the mix and our kids' personalities, so of course things like potty training are going to be different for each family. But, hey, potty training is something parents can commiserate on, because, girl. We know. We, too, have walked that road.

Social media can be a great way to find support, to lift each other up. It can be a great way to connect with people going through the same challenges you are and to stay in touch with people you love, even from a distance. Social media is a great way to put your message and your voice out there. Posting what you notice and what you are passionate about is not "Facebooking," but sharing your point of view. There is a space for you. I know there are trolls on the internet, but this post isn't really about that. This post is for the every day parent, looking to make some sense of their online presence.

I think also, in my case, I came across a time when social media was hard for me. I needed to step away. It also taught me that sometimes following the wrong content isn't healthy either. You don't have to "follow" everyone and you don't have to accept every friend request. You don't have to keep every post up or continue to allow comments on your content. You can delete comments on your page or delete comments you left. You don't have to keep getting notifications for something you commented on. You don't have to remain in every group you are added to. You don't have to reply to every message. You don't have to remain friends or followers with everyone either-- you can unfriend, unfollow, and block people. You can change your privacy settings. You can keep your social media private and small (as I do now) or you can have it much more open and big. You can start your own blog, public Instagram, public Facebook page, etc. You can set limits for yourself regarding social media-- only participate on certain social media groups, only spend a certain amount of time on it, only share certain content. It is up to you.

But one thing we should all keep in mind is that if you realize it is becoming unhealthy, that's when changes should be made. If it makes you too upset or too angry or too stressed, think about positive changes you can make. If you don't enjoy certain online interactions or find certain pages unenjoyable... alter what you see or what you follow or who you are friends with. There are a lot of changes that can be made and some can be the content you choose to share.

Setting boundaries is not Facebooking. Choosing what you share is not being fake. Carefully choosing what you are exposed to online isn't limiting your world view. Cultivate your positive spaces. Make wise social media decisions and change things that are no longer working for you. Make a point to have a healthy experiences with social media.