Are you a ‘disney’ mum?

I walk past a restaurant and a cafe every day that are very popular on social media. People queue for ages in the cold, they then sit under a heat lamp and wait for quite a while for a harassed waiter to bring them their photogenic order. They then spend a long time photoing each other with the food and then presumably they eat it after it has gone cold. Before they became social media sensations I ate in these places a couple of times. They were fine but not great.

My conclusion from this is that your life has to quite rubbish in order to make posting lifestyle stuff on social media worth bothering with.

Only in the sense that I spent 20 years waking up each morning determined to be Mary Poppins, only to have morphed into Cruella de Vil by 8am? Does that count?

YABU meaning that it is time to delete social media (or maybe just having a break)
It is not real.
Yes, it makes me feel so bad sometimes.

”Let’s bake a cake with my toddler”
”Here is how I make some healthy lunch from scratch that my 2 year old loooves”
”Today I went for a run for the first time after I had my baby, I managed a 5k!”

Aargh

Yes, we live like that. Both work FT, make homemade dinner every night and roast every Sunday. Kids are well behaved and watch limited amount of tv. Don’t have tablets and we encourage reading instead. We don't have social media, both don’t care about that. We know it’s fake and have no interest in doing performative parenting just so I can post it online to people I don’t know or care about. I find it all very superficial and vapid.

I don't know about being a Disney mum but I'm the "mum wot does it all". Our life is not Instagrammable but I am blessed (cursed?) with two very active, perhaps hyperactive, kids who are into everything, want to do everything, pull things out of cupboards, touch everything, explore everything and egg each other on. Their enthusiasm for life is boundless. They find endless joy and amusement in the little things in life - walking on brick walls, trying to climb empty supermarket shelves, swinging off rails in buses, popping bubble wrap with sharp scissors, hitting each other with sticks, turning their duvets into sledges to toboggan down the stairs. It is difficult to describe what it is like parenting children like this to people who don't have them. I am amazed everyday by their ingenuity and capacity to make mess and attract attention.

I have found that our time does go more smoothly if I redirect their attention and energy into activities I've set up in advance. So (and I'm sure people will roll their eyes at this) if we're at home all day due to weekends or holidays, I do often set up a few quick activities on the table or in the corner, like kinetic sand, stickers or a big piece of paper taped to the floor to draw on, and have found the "invitation to play" content on Instagram quite useful in the past for ideas.

I think you need to step away from.social.media if you are.struggling to separate it from reality.
Honestly, people generally just post the best bits on SM. The reality is a mixture. I think we all know this, no?
My life is a real mix of idyllic super mum moments, lazy tv moments and shouty impatient moments. Chill out, be kind to yourself and find the time to add in some of the more magical 'making memories' type of stuff periodically.

Sort of. There’s a lot of that going on in my house and I think I could easily pull together some pretty impressive instagram reels if I were inclined. I like cooking and baking; my kids like being near me so they get handed veg to peel and bowls to stir. Some days, they (and dh) seem to want to offload every passing thought or pull me in to watch them play a video game, or watch a you tube clip, or read out the funny part in whatever book they’re reading.

What you wouldn’t see as an onlooker is that my autistic eldest has been suicidal twice this school year, and it’s created an attention imbalance- so I’ve accidentally got myself into a situation where I feel like I can’t say no or push any of them off without feeling massive guilt and it’s burning me out.

I don’t give out much, because I have to pick my battles and keeping the level of demand low for ds is the trade off for getting him to school as he needs to decompress and safely unmask. And I drop the demand level a fair bit for dd too because she’s already expected to do/manage/act at a higher level.

It would make great social media but it’s not normal. Oh and we’re all spending too much time on screens because I need a break.

I do make all our food from scratch because I love cooking but not even remotely close to a Disney mum. My life is a dumpster fire I'm constantly trying to fight 🤣

Are you suggesting children spontaneously learn how to bake and cook by themselves? Sew on a button, etc?

Of course children need alone time, but they don't just magically learn how to do things without being shown.

I don't mind an hour or so of TV across a weekend but otherwise yeah, my kids eat home made food, we go out and do things together every day, the 4 year old helps me cook (the 2 year old is a maniac and would kill us all so she doesn't). I don't have social media aside Mumsnet/whatsapp so I don't pit our lives online; it's a horrible damaging waste of time.

No one lives like this 100% of the time but lots of people incorporate aspects of this in their life.
I could have been a “Disney” mum today if I showed you my highlights today. There was a whole lot of sitting around, gaming, some shouting about tidying up and telling off about being rude.
If you were going to make a video of your day, I’m sure you’d include “Disney mum” activities. This is what they’re doing - stuff that looks good on film.

I agree. I think a worse kind of ‘mum influencer’ is the one who over shares about their DC’s behaviour and ‘meltdowns’ etc.

It's bullshit. It's a smokescreen designed to make normal people feel like shit.

My kids help me cook sometimes, and we do go for nice walks. But also sometimes they fight like wolves and I want to put the three of them in the bin.

Also they really love 39p noodles that come with a sachet of chicken flavouring which is probably 90% salt. I should whack that on IG and take cover 🤣

Guys, we've found one.

Maybe some people do live that way but honestly it's not because they have some magic touch it's just sheer luck that their kids are easy/their personalities/they have loads of money/and of course who could forget that it's all cherry picked for the camera.
Meanwhile the rest of us are fuming at our kids who haven't cleared the table or who are flicking food on the floor, imagine how exhausting it must be to pretend in social media that it's not your life?

Be aware that a huge amount of mummy content you see on social media is dominated by rich Mormon wives from Utah/Arizona. They have massive mansions, excessive space, money and are extremely religious. Women are discouraged from working outside the house so this is also where MLMs originated from. All work that can be done while being a SAHM is ok, and many turn their everyday mum lives into lucrative social media businesses. There was a recent tragedy with one of the most successful "Disney Mums", Tiktoker Emilie Kiser whose son drowned in their pool while she was out with friends and her husband was supposed to be taking care of the kids. Viewers had repeatedly told them to get a pool fence but they opted for a pool net instead which was presumably less ugly for aesthetics. A net that needs to be fastened along all the edges of a huge pool is clearly not a viable solution if the pool is actively being used.

The aesthetic of Mormon motherhood content has a ripple effect on mummy influencers all over the world. So you may easily see British mums making similar types of content but they are effectively copying the same blueprint that originated in the USA. Once you see through this as a marketing/business gimmick, the whole idea of being a Disney mum is a bit silly. It starts as performative parenting from women who earn money with it and are forced by their social and religious conventions to stay home all day with their kids. This content gets seen out of context by other mothers across the world who live in a culture or country which this sort of parenting is often logistically not possible.

Don’t do the dinner prep stuff but defo like to run around a few fields/woods/beach etc which I guess is pretty wholesome. Those instagram mums are for sure letting their kids watch tv and of course not showing the arguments. You also don’t see all the bribery it probably takes them to get their kids to smile for the camera or behave in a video. Don’t compare yourselves, just do what works for your family.

Anyone who’s putting their child on a public social media account isn’t a good parent. These poor kids who are much too young to be able to consent to their lives being up for public scrutiny.

I feel like I come across as a Disney mum but I have no idea how or why?! There was a parenting workshop at school and I wanted to attend. A few parents said “you are great with kids and didn’t think I needed to attend” I think it might be the way I talk but honestly I’m not sure.

I do like to cook and have made some meals from scratch but I also love a McDonald’s and think is all balance. Some days we have a picnic in the park and make a den at home and others we have far too much screen time and eat junk.

I agree, these days it's about trying to fill time rather than save time.

It's that feeling you get when you've all finished breakfast on a Sunday morning and it's only 7.30am and you look at the kids and it's raining... what are we going to DO today?!

If it takes ages for the kids to do the task, that's a feature not a bug

Kids don't need you occupying them. Thats how you get useless adults.
They are supposed to occupy themselves. That's how independence is developed.
People get the wrong end of the stick and run with it.

I'm cranky, messy, disorganised, so the least Disney mum ever...

But my dd does help us batch cook. It kills time, keeps her entertained and helps me complete the task. She can chop, peel, stir.

Getting your kid to help you cook is making your life easier, it's the opposite of what you're describing imo

Literally nobody lives like this. Also why do people use social media? So strange. Of course it's full of shit.

Social media just isn't real.

I'm a SAHM so yes, our days do look a bit like you describe, but everyone still has tantrums and misbehaves occasionally.

Some days it's all 'little house on the prairie' and other days I throw in the towel and let them have dinner in front of the TV.

Them social media videos are made by professional content creators. They’ve set up a camera and got everything out and prepared to film that content. It’s all fake.