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?

I used to live next door to an influencer. I once watched her almost murder her child during a Mother's Day picnic photoshoot in the back garden and then saw the absolutely glorious photos of them later in their matching outfits. Laughing and drinking tea from vintage china.

I can assure you than neither mother, father of children enjoyed one moment of their Mother's Day picnic. Unless they enjoy shouting and being told what to do and posing and then doing it all over again.

Step away from the Gram. Its toxic

You sound more like me

Oh god. I worry about my child growing up in a social media world

Never compare someone’s edited highlights with your reality.

I clean for a very rich family, we both have daughters the same age, they have another daughter and the kids are ruined, their playrooms are like hamleys, they go on holidays around the world 6 times a year when they’re not at private school. Their children are no more happier than my little girl who practically lives in poverty, in fact their children are seeing counsellors which has led to the mother being depressed.

So I guess the saying is true, money can’t buy happiness. ( it does help though as I’m as miserable as sin being skint all the time.)

Social media is staged. Happy marriages, wonderful kids, heavenly holidays.. crap. Everyone has ups and downs in life and I promise you that ‘perfect’ mum and kids are no different to you. People don't even look like their profile pics half the time! Smoke and mirrors.

It's not all bad I guess, to be fair it did give me the kick up the arse I needed to do the washing up and hoovering

@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

What in the world. In her twenties = too young? Strange comment

@BunchOfShunts

Honestly, and this is speaking from experience having two friends who are very successful "influencers" -it's not real. It really isn't. One is a lifestyle guru, the other is a family based account around her successful in sport child. Both have sponsors and hundreds of thousands of followers. Both spend hour upon hour staging photos, thinking of captions and cropping videos -what they present online is NOT who they are in real life at all -not even close. It's fiction. They see it as a job, they gain sponsors and free products and link to their YouTube channels from which they earn money. One has a book out from the back of being an "influencer". It's all advertising. They are lovely people and it's much harder work than it sounds. I couldn't cope with the trolling personally. Please don't judge yourself based on a staged snapshot.

Wow thank you for the insight

That sounds like too much faff. I couldn't be doing with it. 3 kids is hard work enough without dallying about doing all of that.

PP who said you do all those things the TikTok mum does, just not for the internet. I admire you.

It’s all absolute bollocks. Filming those kind of staged vignettes probably takes a whole day. She’ll have professional lighting, the works.

Making you feel shit about yourself is the whole point. So that you’ll buy a snooze pod or the latest organic baby food range, just to make yourself feel like a ‘good parent’.

I don’t want to give away where I live, but there are three very high profile influencers who love local to my area. Every now and again I see one of them out and about filming for the ‘gram and it is a proper TV level production let me tell you. They have people behind the scenes and everything.

Just scroll past it and ignore it for the shite that it is.

@Katya213

I clean for a very rich family, we both have daughters the same age, they have another daughter and the kids are ruined, their playrooms are like hamleys, they go on holidays around the world 6 times a year when they’re not at private school. Their children are no more happier than my little girl who practically lives in poverty, in fact their children are seeing counsellors which has led to the mother being depressed.

So I guess the saying is true, money can’t buy happiness. ( it does help though as I’m as miserable as sin being skint all the time.)

Wow, talk about how the other half live

I'm a cleaner too btw. I'll second that about money helping. We're living paycheck to paycheck, just DH's atm as I'm on mat leave.

@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

Nasty

YABU to watch that unethical performance parenting shite.

Poor kid spends its whole life surrounded by ring lights and having to do second takes of activities. Even poor Truman on the Truman Show at least had the relative bliss of ignorance.

Trick is not to compare yourself, life isn’t perfect. We can make our lives look perfect on social media but the truth is no one knows what happens behind closed doors. The real life of ‘perfect tik tok mum’

Stop caring about things you can’t change, you tried to bf, your child is no doubt fine without bm, I have 4 boys and if I got hung up on families with beautifully presented kids showing off so called perfect lives I’d just give up. They are fake, it’s not real life and who wants to be that perfect anyway. Being a nice nurturing caring parent is far better than all the fancy outfits and perfect bedrooms, the baby doesn’t know. It just knows that you are making him happy and that he’s fed and dry and cared for. Don’t let other people make you feel less than. You’re caring for your kids not putting their lives online for anyone to see.

@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

Jealously getting to you? Why would you assume that there's something wrong🙄

20s isn't young to have a child and nobody asked for comment on that

I think the clue is in the name… ‘a day’ as in one day… rehearsed and carefully planned to be put on social media…
I know it’s hard, but I think grown up women, or people in general, need to give their heads a wobble and realise that obviously this isn’t real and take a bit of responsibility for themselves and how watching these videos makes them feel. If it’s that bad and you can’t see the reality, don’t watch it. We are constantly trying to teach our teenagers this but how are they supposed to get to grips with the fakeness of the internet and unrealistic expectations when grown adults can’t either.

I haven’t rtft so may be repeating others, but I really think it depends on the baby as well as other factors (family support, finances, partner)

My first baby was a bit of a nightmare and I was an exhausted mess most of the time. My husband was out of the house long hours and we lived away from family.

My 2nd baby is so much more chilled, I’d have hours in the day with nothing to do as she napped easily, entertained herself from an early age and fed easily too. We moved nearer my family and my husband now wfh quite flexibly and I am finding things so much easier this time round.

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

These probably are set up way in advance, with help.

Baby ends up in a total mess which is fine because she gets bathed every night before bed as part of their routine.

Pure luck if the draw she has a super easy baby.

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

Luck of a support network OR he long night out is only really 2 hours

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

For the camera!

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.

Careful lighting, soft lighting can make grubby whites look amazing. I’ve worked as a photographer and you’d be amazed at the very simple tricks you can do to perfect how a room looks on camera, even video.

I haven't managed to keep my kids white clothes white for more than a month.

No one has without substantial effort, products, time and desire to self flagellate

The flat is clean but never stays tidy.

I bet behind the camera it looks like she’s summoning demons. Again careful angles can make a dive of a house look amazing. Even the most put together people have rooms of doom and junk drawers and bursting attics of crap.

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.

There is every possibility this is real but there’s also a strong possibility it’s staged and a big chunk of what’s there is ‘fake’ or purchased breast milk or even cows milk in The breast milk pouches. Don’t underestimate the lengths people go to to appear ‘perfect’

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.

Again. Could’ve been faked. I know an (wannabe) influencer mum who faked pictures of making baby food for freezing. She went to the pound shop for baby food and emptied the jars into a bowl pretending she’d made all this baby food. Her pictures looked fab but it was real.

Also No self respecting mum would use bamboo bowls because you can’t put it in a dishwasher who the fuck has time for that?

The TikTok mum goes to lots of baby groups.

And other mums willing choose other forms of slow torture. Baby groups aren’t all they’ve cracked up to be can be cliquey and detrimental to mum and baby health esp if you come across some self appointed queen bee that takes a dislike to you (been there)

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

And that’s probably all her life is focused on, the needing validation via social media. Everything is too glossy, put together for it to feel homely. She’s probably stressing things aren’t perfect. Likely Has credit card debt to pay for it all as many influencers do trying to keep up with each other.

I’m pointing all these out to show you there is often another side and behind the smoke and mirrors there is a colder reality that’s far from perfect.

It’s. Not. Real. I absolutely guarantee it. If you must watch social media please don’t actually believe it.

Search shitmumsclub on TikTok.

There's a good community there if you know where to look.

When my children were very small there was no Internet stuff, but there was Hello magazine. It was published every Friday. A young , female, TV presenter was featured in an article, with lots and lots of beautiful photos. The nursery her children had was professionally decorated in fabrics from a company called Designers guild. They had a shop in the Kings Road London. It was absolutely beautiful. The furniture was everything I could dream of having. Oh how I envied her perfect home and her perfect life with her perfect husband and children. A short while later she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After years of gruelling treatment she sadly died. Her children were still primary school age. I dare say she would have chosen my life ,without all the fancy stuff, in a heartbeat if it meant she got to see her children grow into adults. I often think of her as her mum is a TV presenter and frequently on the telly. Don't compare yourself and your life to other people Op ,you can never know what is really going on.Concentrate on you and on coping with your anxiety .

I spent £80 on a beautiful set of those bamboo plates and bowls before we adopted our LO. Every meal/snack is served on the cheap ikea ones because they go in the dishwasher.

Friday, I had a sickness bug and LO spent most of the day walking around without trousers on because ‘I want my bum out, mummy’ and I did not have the strength to argue.

Honestly, give yourself a break. Everything on insta and tiktok is curated. My own insta is full of family days out, holidays, adventures. They’re wonderful but also not the whole picture!

Ask yourself - why would anyone who spends so much time seeking the validation of strangers actually be living the perfect life?

Google a site called ' the lies of instagram'. It shows you the beautiful photos and the actual reality around those photos. There is another one called ' boyfriends of instagram'. That one is hilarious too. Nothing is real. One young woman is a wannabe fashion influencer. She lives in a crappy street so, every morning, she and her boyfriend run round to a more photogenic street to photograph her leaving her supposed house in that days outfit. This is done every single morning before they go to their real life jobs. Apparently the greatest catch for a young woman with instagram aspirations is a boyfriend who is a professional photographer. It really is all make believe Op.

@EveningOverRooftops

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

These probably are set up way in advance, with help.

Baby ends up in a total mess which is fine because she gets bathed every night before bed as part of their routine.

Pure luck if the draw she has a super easy baby.

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

Luck of a support network OR he long night out is only really 2 hours

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

For the camera!

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.

Careful lighting, soft lighting can make grubby whites look amazing. I’ve worked as a photographer and you’d be amazed at the very simple tricks you can do to perfect how a room looks on camera, even video.

I haven't managed to keep my kids white clothes white for more than a month.

No one has without substantial effort, products, time and desire to self flagellate

The flat is clean but never stays tidy.

I bet behind the camera it looks like she’s summoning demons. Again careful angles can make a dive of a house look amazing. Even the most put together people have rooms of doom and junk drawers and bursting attics of crap.

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.

There is every possibility this is real but there’s also a strong possibility it’s staged and a big chunk of what’s there is ‘fake’ or purchased breast milk or even cows milk in The breast milk pouches. Don’t underestimate the lengths people go to to appear ‘perfect’

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.

Again. Could’ve been faked. I know an (wannabe) influencer mum who faked pictures of making baby food for freezing. She went to the pound shop for baby food and emptied the jars into a bowl pretending she’d made all this baby food. Her pictures looked fab but it was real.

Also No self respecting mum would use bamboo bowls because you can’t put it in a dishwasher who the fuck has time for that?

The TikTok mum goes to lots of baby groups.

And other mums willing choose other forms of slow torture. Baby groups aren’t all they’ve cracked up to be can be cliquey and detrimental to mum and baby health esp if you come across some self appointed queen bee that takes a dislike to you (been there)

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

And that’s probably all her life is focused on, the needing validation via social media. Everything is too glossy, put together for it to feel homely. She’s probably stressing things aren’t perfect. Likely Has credit card debt to pay for it all as many influencers do trying to keep up with each other.

I’m pointing all these out to show you there is often another side and behind the smoke and mirrors there is a colder reality that’s far from perfect.

Brilliant post, thank you. I feel alot less fed up so I'm glad I posted.

I don't tend to watch that type of content usually, so I was intrigued. I'll be avoiding it from now on.

@AngelinaFibres

When my children were very small there was no Internet stuff, but there was Hello magazine. It was published every Friday. A young , female, TV presenter was featured in an article, with lots and lots of beautiful photos. The nursery her children had was professionally decorated in fabrics from a company called Designers guild. They had a shop in the Kings Road London. It was absolutely beautiful. The furniture was everything I could dream of having. Oh how I envied her perfect home and her perfect life with her perfect husband and children. A short while later she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After years of gruelling treatment she sadly died. Her children were still primary school age. I dare say she would have chosen my life ,without all the fancy stuff, in a heartbeat if it meant she got to see her children grow into adults. I often think of her as her mum is a TV presenter and frequently on the telly. Don't compare yourself and your life to other people Op ,you can never know what is really going on.Concentrate on you and on coping with your anxiety .

That's very sobering, and of course you're absolutely right. Poor woman.

I would take my (relatively) good health over wealth any day of the week.