Social media mums - making poor mum's feel like shit since the dawn of the internet

[Fysal]

Just been scrolling through TikTok and came across a mum/baby account, the mum is youngish in her 20's and the baby about 7 months.

There was really sweet 'a day in the life' content showing what they do with their day, what they eat, fun activities. Lots of themed sensory activities and messy play in those Tuff tray things, making a farm yard out of pasta and coco pops for example. Things that take ages to set up and she does it with a smile. Baby ends up in a total mess which is fine because she gets bathed every night before bed as part of their routine.

The occasional well deserved night out with the girls, cocktails and nice food.

I could go on but you get the gist. She just seemed like the perfect mum.

No cute nightly bath routine for us, it's every 2nd or third day and it's always a nightmare - not the tranquil experience I'm seeing on the internet with other people's kids.

The tiktok babies bedroom was stunning. Lovely furniture, she showed inside her babies wardrobe which was full of neatly hung, well ironed pretty clothes. The whites were bright crisp white.

I haven't managed to keep my kids white clothes white for more than a month. I haven't seen an iron in years. If something is going to need ironing regularly I tend not to buy it. I'm not very domestic to be honest. The flat is clean but never stays tidy.

No beautifully arranged wardrobes for the kids here, just folded away into cheap plastic drawers.

She showed herself freezing ozs and ozs of breast milk, she'd managed to exclusively BF for 7 months now her daughter is doing baby led weaning.

I failed to establish BF and only managed to express for a few weeks.

All of the TikTok babies meals were lovingly prepared and beautifully presented, exciting and experimental recipes from a glossy BLW cook book. Baby ate from those cute bamboo bowls shaped like bunnies. Picturesque.

My eldest lives on chicken nuggets. He won't eat a thing else because of his ARIFD and autism.

The TikTok mum goes to lots of baby groups. My anxiety wouldn't get me past the front door if I decided I wanted to do something like that.

Don't get me wrong my children are loved but we don't have a particularly great life, not compared to families like that anyway.

AIBU to think social media makes poor / depressed people feel even more shit?

It’s just for show OP - but I think you know that.
This isn’t about her, it’s about you and how you feel about your parenting. It sounds like you’re doing a great job but that you feel somehow that you’re letting your children down/not giving them a great life. Yet they are loved and cared for. Therefore they already have a fantastic start in life, whether they eat chicken nuggets or organic sourdough fermented goodness knows what.

Stop looking at this account, and focus on your own little corner of the world.

@SecretSquirrel111

It’s all a show.

And to be honest she sounds pretty young to be a mum… I’d be wondering about her career

I would say she looks to be in her early - mid 20's, but she could be in her 30's and just look amazing for it unlike me

And to be honest she sounds pretty young to be a mum… I’d be wondering about her career

Really? Are women still doing this to each other?

But why watch it if it makes you feel bad/inadequate? I’m not trying to be a dick, I just mean why are you doing this to yourself? I don’t watch these things and never have because I know they wouldn’t add anything positive to my life. My kids are cared for, happy, healthy and I do my best… I don’t need to see anyone else’s ‘perfect’ life.

My sister in law is like this- only thing is I know in real life she is a twat and that actually that while on the surface she looks like the perfect mum with the lovely Insta ready house, reality is very different and I have to bite my tongue all the time as she isn’t doing lots of things she should be doing to meet developmental milestones.

I bet she never shows the days when the baby is grumpy, snotty, has a temperature, whining constantly and nappy explosion with shite right up to baby's neck. Because it absolutely will be happening , it just doesn't get filmed. I wouldn't watch this sort of stuff, I'm not interested in other peoples perfect Instagram lives!!

Look up the Shit Mums Club on tiktok. Far more realistic and relatable!

If it makes you feel bad, why watch it?

Do you really think that these women are spending quality time with their little ones? It takes hours and hours to set up all this footage and picture perfectness. Just stop looking and do the best you can

This isn’t about her, it’s about you and how you feel about your parenting.

Bang on the money.

We've had a crap day here, teething baby and endless meltdowns from DS1. DH has done his back in so is off work and out of action and I've been pulled in all directions. Dinner went wrong. One thing after another. The flat is shit and I want to move.

I escaped to the loo for a breather and was just scrolling about on the FYP when I came across that account. I love cute babies so fell down a bit of a rabbit hole for 10 minutes watching their videos.

I came away feeling SO much worse.

You sound like me 20 odd years ago.

I'm so grateful there was no social media back then. Parenting is hard enough without feeling you are failing to live up to the 'standard' portrayed by insta mums.

You are doing just fine.

I have a lovely friend who back in the day would say 'well, nobody died did they, and they are all fed, today is a success!'

It takes a mum confident in their love for their children to raise happy kids.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

@Bordois

Look up the Shit Mums Club on tiktok. Far more realistic and relatable!

Now that sounds like my cup of tea!

These posts on Instagram or tiktoc are about putting on an act - it's the "ideal" they are selling. Real life isn't like that.

I get it's hard to not compare but please try not to. Real life isn't always "instagram" it's messy, kids have meltdowns, sleepless nights etc.

It's hard to see these posts and not compare but please try and remember that's not her real life either - it's edited. And ask yourself would you swap and have to always try for the perfect Instagram shot/video all the time rather than enjoy parenting, warts and all?

I think you need to follow some other people on social media like the unmumsy mum. Follow asd people like sarah gibbs or elle whatshername.

Find pleasure in your child, and dont feel the need to share on so.me. for validation.

OP I know this is an extreme end of 'perfect' but social media is all front. The people who feel they have the most to prove are the most likely to hide the every day.

The perfect smiling picture of the baby might have been the only smile all day. The space infront of the camera is perfect... behind it is a pile of crap. Or it might not be (but would be in my house). There is a reason school photos are usually taken infront of a door or fireplace.

As for baby groups - I went to one. The council run one in our local health centre - I did love it, in fact I needed it because it was real and made me realise motherhood isn't like the glossy brochures. We spoke abouut going to Asda at 2am to buy formula and bottles because BF wasn't working, nappy explosions that just happened at the wrong time, baby's nose going orange because ALL the purees contained orange or sweet potato and how a well timed wet wipe can clean the folds of baby's neck (when they sleep) much better than trying in the bath. Thankfully I had DD1 when social media was fairly new so I didn't have Instamums makig me feel bad.

At the end of the day ask yourself...is your child safe, warm, fed and loved? If it's a yes, everything else is a plus.

Best to assume everything you read on the internet is absolute bollox - those perfect lives/kids/bums/days filled with exciting hobbies - all of ‘em edited to within an inch of reality. Dina’s kid isn’t really scoffing down those carrot sticks and houmous, they’re shovelling them into the (unhoovered) carpet or feeding it to the dog.

Isn’t Instagram on the way out - the whole staged life influencer thing and the absurdity of it all?
I have heard of photo dumping unfiltered unedited photos on Instagram as a kind of protest against the fake-posing-as-real perfection of it all.

It isn’t any more real than a television drama, remember that, OP. You sound lovely and it’s shit that you’ve had a bad day.

it well predates the internet....think of those 16 and 17 c paintings of all the family together all having a LOVELY time all in clean clothes.

It’s just like all the mummy blogs in the 2000s - all cute kids, country living and cupcakes. I think the more popular ones were sponsored, but mostly there was a rich husband in the background who could fund this imaginary perfect lifestyle. Imagine the time it takes to get all those photos just so. It’s not real life. Don’t feel bad about yours.

I get what you mean @Fysal but the "dawn of the internet" was the early 1990s (1991 precisely) when Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. There was internet before 1991, but the WWW was basically the internet as we know it now e.g. web browsers.

Social media didn't really kick in until the late 2000s with Facebook/Faceparty, Myspace, Livejournal etc.

Apart from anything else, a 7 month old baby will get very little out of all those shenanigans. Pasta farmyard??? Maybe a 3 year old would enjoy that but the baby will have had no idea what was going on.

This is a bit like the joke about the patient who pokes himself and says "it hurts when I do that". The doctor says, "Then stop doing that."

Stop watching that bullshit. It's meaningless and fake. No one is making you expose yourself to it.

I feel the same about BLW Instagram accounts.

However I’ve finally realised I don’t need to offer my children crumpets, fruit and cereal on the same plate for breakfast.
Or make their food look like it’s instagramable.
Whole point of BLW was to make it easier to feed your baby what you eat, that point has been truly lost and it seems a competition between accounts of who has the best looking plate of food.

Social media is so toxic op, it doesn’t paint the real picture at all. Look at peoples day out photos with their kids, they never discuss the stress behind the day out do they?

I am so hard to please here. I want the vlogs I follow to be real, but not so shit as me. I want something I can live up to, but still enjoy. I don’t want the garden blogs I follow to look like my to do list and be full of the star saying they ‘didn’t get round to it’ or haven’t blogged because they’ve been busy etc etc, but I don’t want them totally staged. I don’t mind if it’s their job, and I don’t mind a bit of tweaking for the camera. Just not too much fakery!

It’s a hard line to walk.

Don’t watch things that make you feel shit. Find something you can relate and that names you feel good about your parenting. Go unfollow her, she’s not the right fit for you.