Are you a ‘disney’ mum?

I have never been like this, though because I was SAHM I did have time to do crafty projects from time to time. A lot of the time I was tired, grumpy and just trying to get to the end of the day with everyone fed, no one dead. However Facebook keeps throwing up ‘memories’ from previous years, and they give a totally false impression! So it’s clearly very easy, with only a little effort, to create an image that is far from the reality of the daily grind that I remember!

I feel sorry and worried for today's children who are growing up with cameras constantly in their faces and every "wholesome" moment manufactured for insta. I really wonder if any of these people have genuine real loving moments with their kids or is everything just a series of Instagram posts and opportunities.
I also despise "influencers" who monitise their kids lives. I just don't understand it and would argue it goes against every good parental instinct to keep your kids safe. There are people who are giving up their jobs to be full time content makers and it's their kids who are the content
I mean can you actually imagine the pressure they are under to always create new and "wholesome" content. Poor kids.

We live like this, we have a farm and the children are outside and the TV genuinely hasn’t been on since February BUT there is a lot of not so glossy bits, mess , stress and 4 children constantly arguing 😂 I make everything from scratch food wise ect and I’m sure I could make my IG look fancy but genuinely behind the scenes it’s chaos. Might just be us that’s chaotic but I have no idea how they do it. I think social media is very false everyone only puts the best bits on!

I always think that the "takes hours" thing with any household activity with the kids is a weird complaint.

I mean, kids need to be occupied most of the day, right? Yes, it takes longer to do stuff with my son, yes his weeding is very hit and miss (a fistful of anything green), but he also needs to learn to take care of himself and the house, and if the process of making dinner takes up the whole afternoon then so what?

I have sneaking suspicion that the kids who don't get allowed to do stuff cause it "takes ages" become the adults who can't keep house or feed themselves.

Like you say op, a walk through the meadow, baking etc only eats a few hours of the day. My sister posts a lot on social media of happy times with her two kids but i reality the kids HATE each other more than I've ever seen between siblings, she's incredibly stressed and struggles a lot. I know that trip to the beach with a few nice photos was fraught with arguing, empty threats and probably at least one person crying

Remember that behind all these perfectly curated snapshots of family life you see on social media is someone looking at their phone the rest of the time checking out who is liking and commenting on it.

I once heard a famous photographer say that anyone can take good pictures, you just throw away the bad ones. I think that applies to these cases if I took pictures of everything the kids do then selected the good ones I could paint a pretty good image. A quick photo of them mixing a cake mix, ignoring the massive pile of flour on the floor behind me. No one really posts pictures of people watching TV.

Ah, some parents I am sure do live this life but its time consuming. What you've described is my daily life BUT I am a stay at home parent for 8 years now. THEY are my job. Oh, and I yell sometimes because the more you giveth, the more they taketh.

There's no way anyone could do this and work, I tried. I slept 4 hours a night and felt like death. That was working part time too (worked evenings after being this "disney" mum) so full time isn't possible, honestly, it's lies! 😂

What I will say is baking own bread/cakes and home cooked food etc isn't all that amazing. You can fit it in to daily life with kids easily, bit less so when working. The reason I felt like death above working part time was because I had two kids as a single parent, like no help single parent. Single single. Still did this "disney" thing plus work but it wasn't viable long term for my physical health.

One thing I will say is I have my close friends, ZERO social media and mumsnet here or there but rarely tbh because I literally have no time.

Bread bakes itself. Cakes I'm experienced in - easy to do and becomes a task. Traybakes, brownies are extremely easy and quick once you've done them a dozen times. Home cooked meals with meticulous planning and GADGETS are ridiculously easy and quick. I make gadgets work for me, make baking into family learning fun events etc.

Oh and I look like a tramp doing all above because I don't focus on me, I focus on my kids.

I think many people like watching this kind of content because it feels wholesome and aspirational and comforting. Like how I love watching Malory Towers with my DD- despite knowing that really, boarding school is nothing like this, real-life kids are nothing like this- there’s some weird nostalgic feeling there, for a simpler time.

So these influencers are not going to show tears and tantrums and whinges, which their kids will of course have their fair share of, because it’s not what their followers want to see. There are plenty of influencers that do go for the warts and all approach, for people that prefer that.

(Not that any of it is for me- I hate this obsession with sharing details of our kids lives on social media).

If you view it, you just need to accept you’re seeing a tiny snapshot of the reality they want to show- it’s a kind of advertising, really. And it’s fine to think ‘I’d love to do a few more things like that with my kids’ and try to do that. But don’t be fooled that they, or anyone, does that all the time, no-one does.

Who are you following? A bunch of trad wives.

I don’t see this so just unfollow

This lifestyle doesn't exist. The people you see doing it online are faking it because they are paid to post it all online.

They do work, often many hours. Filming and editing content can be a long tedious job and they wont be "having quality time with the kids" while doing it. Often the pay is very low (only a very small % of content creators make a good living from it).

The rare handful people who do live like this are not posting it all online as there seriously isn't enough hours in the day to do it all and create content about it.

FYI if you’re on the step parenting board you will understand that a Disney parent is one who treats the kids like they’re royal guests, has no intention of doing any hard parenting (like setting rules) and spoils them rotten. Either mom or dad (or for some poor kids both parents) can behave like this.

What you’re describing isn’t disney parenting it’s social media lies. I do a lot of the things you list, but don’t post on social media and definitely don’t think life is all sunshine and roses because the kids will still bicker and I’m still knackered and tetchy at times. We do lots of ‘wholesome’ things because I was raised that way in the 90s thanks to my hippy parents who eschewed TV, were vegetarians and bough food from a co-operative group (ordered via meetings between them and their friends to buy in bulk then split it up).

Ignore Instagram and follow your own values but with the knowledge that no parenting style yields endless happiness and perfect days because life isn’t like that.

No one lives like that 100% of the time and certainly not as a single parent and working full time.

Instagram isn’t real life.

OP you know social media isn’t real don’t you?
read this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66719859

I was one circa 2008-2013. I worked ft and felt so guilty (they were first into creche and last out) that evenings and weekends was all about them having as much lovely and fun times as possible. My goal daily was to make them laugh and learn something etc etc. then I suppose life hit, debt, illnesses, exhaustion really and funnily enough even though then I became a sahm I just didn’t have the energy and fell back on screens and less home cooked food, also was a lot less enthusiastic, fun, educational really. God. Scary how you change

Hell no!

peel the veg to prep Sunday lunch, baking a cake for pudding and spending wholesome days together picking flowers and walking through meadows etc. I know online is not real life but is there anyone who genuinely lives like this?

Not every minute, of course, but much more like this than otherwise. Just normal life.

People who spend their time making that kind of content are doing it as their full time job. It is an act.

people letting their children help them peel the veg to prep Sunday lunch, baking a cake for pudding and spending wholesome days together picking flowers and walking through meadows etc

What’s odd about any of this? It’s pretty much how I spent my afternoon, I made a roast with my 6 year old while the toddler slept, then baked a cake with the toddler then we went for a walk to a local area, smelled the roses, ran around a bit and stopped in at a pub for a drink. I didn’t post it on any social media as I’d never post anything involving my kids and I left my phone at home but cooking with young children then going for a walk seems an incredibly unremarkable Sunday.

Just stop watching this crap on social media. Seriously, it's just utter nonsense.

Our lives are absolutely not that. But we do have moments of this that reflect the life other people post (I don’t use insta or any social media for my family). This might be the children doing a drawing challenge, or creating an amazing junk box model, building a den in the woods or us all playing a game. But these moments, whilst magical, are a fraction of our lives. I would adore this type of life but I work and therefore don’t have the headspace or time to curate it

I could easily find moments most days that made our lives look like this on social media, but it would be 1-5% of our daily reality and I don’t believe in offering your kids up as internet content.

No. We spend time outdoors and have homemade food but they also watch TV and eat McDonald's and cake and whine like every other normal kid.

Your response seems so bitchy, she probably did have a nice day, it sounds like her son is also a handful, yet rather than expected others to accept that she's gone to the trouble of finding you to apologize and you've googled her and been smug at her social media. Dunno, seems mean