Smuggest mum blogger post ever?

[Yippitydoodah]

I follow a mum blogger who lives in a very remote location in the UK. Posts have always been a bit ‘aren’t we wholesome’ but with some interesting stuff too. But just recently the smug has reached a new level! She homeschools her kids (not short of a bob or two) and posted about their day outdoors in the nice winter sunshine. She said ‘my son said, just think mum, if I went to school like everyone else I would be sat in a classroom missing this beautiful day. Isn’t he wise?’

AIBU to ask if this is the most self congratulatory post ever?!

I have Instagram but don't follow any influencers. I sometimes pass my time on the Daily fail (much to DHs dismay) so I know some of them can make a lot of money. I draw the line at earning these people more money by following them so I suggest you unfollow this mummy blogger if the 'content' rubs you up the wrong way.

I love the sad beige instagram account!

I hope Finn got a Postman Pat duvet cover set or something!

Do you waft round in a kaftan and complain a lot then.

Heavens, there are some very thin-skinned folk about this morning.

If I were an IG mum I could induce coma with the mundanity of my weekly menus, but my main sponsor would be Heinz Spaghetti Hoops.

No way Finn's bed stayed like that. Imagine crawling around the flat laminated zone floor every morning to get those organic body coverings blankets tucked in.

Oh my days! Do we ever find out what poor Finn feels about is colourless perfect world?

Is homeschooling really all that aspirational or envy inducing anymore, now that we’ve all had a go at it over the past couple of years? Yes, I know for some families it works for the best, but every single parent I know was utterly ecstatic when schools reopened too all in September 2020 and March 2021.

And massive crayons or paints to add colour to the walls and floors.

Well this thread has taken an unexpected twist!

I used to watch a few on YouTube, and followed their blogs/instagrams, but then I grew up.
It's all fake, and it's child exploitation. It's all cute when the kids are 3 or 4, but when they're 14 and the class bully has found the video of them potty training or having a meltdown... Not so cute then. CHILDREN CAN'T CONSENT.

I know of two IG mum's in my local area, one is fairly normal and her posts show the good and bad of her life, the other is the type that has a houseful of children and spends all her time ranting about how her children are little shits and her weekends are spent at bars getting drunk because her kids are driving her mad.

The normal mum doesn't seem to make money from it, but the other mum is always getting free things and posting paid ads.

I knew someone on another parenting forum who ended up becoming a mum blogger and made/makes a living front it.

1. the "hilarious" anecdotes in her blogs were largely plagiarised from conversations with our mutual friends. Like, every blog post would have direct quotes she lifted from WhatsApp or fb group conversations and passed off as her own witty and droll cometary on parenting. She definitely lost friends over this.

2. we met up a few times with our kids. The irony is she became a mum blogger to spend more time with her kids, but those kids were heavily ignored because of the job. To make any profit at all, she was constantly glued to her phone, had to reply to emails and enquiries immediately etc. The only time she interacted with her kids was to take a photo for the blog, otherwise she was hustling. Boring person to be around, and made me realise just how fake the smiley wholesome blog was.

Aww, @AnotherPretentiousMumBlog , I hope you are ok. I can completely understand why for some children, home ed is best and even as I read the post about them all being intense etc, I did think, well was the child like that anyway and would've been ripped apart at school? For one of mine, school has pretty much been a case of 'get through it' rather than best years of their life. One of mine has pretty leftfield interests which would probably come across as pretentious if I wrote them down.

I see this thread as a bit of gentle ribbing rather than nasty. Finn's nursery is funny but I'm glad they are all thriving and happily still blogging on Instagram or whatever.

I can absolutely see a need to home school, for instance, where the child is disabled and no local school can accommodate them.

But when it’s because mum and dad are ‘free spirited hippies’ or whatever, it’s like a weird form of indoctrination that (in my experience) produces odd kids - very intense, taking themselves seriously, no real idea of how to socialise with other children. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy because then the parent will think ‘aww little Sophie is so introverted and clever and eccentric, I did the right thing home schooling’ when Sophie is actually like that because having years of those values drummed into her with no dilution from her peers and wider society.

Oh do, I much prefer the mad shit kids come out with to the pseudo-intellectual stuff these mummy bloggers claim.

If my child was coming out with deep and haunting phrases at 5 I would know I had failed them.

The home ed convo is getting a little personal now I think, for a light-hearted thread. Sure, there are lots of parents like the ones you describe OP, equally there are plenty of very normal parents of NT children with no disabilities who just believe that there are viable alternatives to state-offered mass education. That there is another way to do childhood and education. Some can come across as evangelical because they're used to negative comments so feel the need to reinforce their actions to themselves as much as others.

Some people just want to home school their kids ok. Leave them be.

I didn’t know nannies were excluded from calling a twat a twat! Well I never.

Anyway. Lifting my handiwork on birthday cakes, craft activities and nutritious aesthetically pleasing dinners for her own Instagram and getting all the credit and praise WAS pretty twatty. I’m not sorry if that offends any nanny employers on here.

Nah, she sounds 100% a twat.

The mother of them all (ha!) is Joyce Maynard. She was a mum blogger before blogging existed. She wrote a newspaper column back in the 1980s all about her family, using their real names and personal details. When the column was discontinued and her marriage broke down, she started a widely distributed newsletter. Of course she became an enthusiastic user of social media as soon as it appeared. Along the way she published several books exploiting her family and revealing private details I would imagine her children never consented to have revealed. Then when her kids were grown up, she adopted two little girls from Ethiopia, then ditched them when the reality of adoption turned out to be different from her fantasies. It would be difficult to find a more self-absorbed person anywhere.

she adopted two little girls from Ethiopia, then ditched them when the reality of adoption turned out to be different from her fantasies

"Ditched them"?

You mean - actually sent them back, like unwanted parcels? Bliddy hell - that's cruel.

No she didn’t send them back, she sent them to live on a farm in Wyoming, and then removed all trace and mention of them from her website! Shocking.

@Emotionalsupportviper

She didn’t send them back (to the familiar place they’d been born). She sent them, after a year, to another random American family. Like rehoming a cat.

Same as the other influencer mentioned above who ‘rehomed’ her adopted son when he turned out to be too much hard work. Makes you wonder if they’re so shallow they’d ‘rehome’ their own kids, or if they just see adopted kids from other countries as more akin to animals/pets/toys that can be chosen and bought and used and discarded.

Thanks @Skinnermarink and @Kanaloa - that's bliddy brutal.

As you say, you'd put more care into re-homing a cat. What a horrible way to treat a child.

Children who have been adopted are often so desperately vulnerable to begin with, and then to be passed on like a book you've read but weren't keen on and don't want anymore - how soul-destroying is that for them? Poor kids.

And how vulnerable they are then to anyone who tries to groom them - they will be desperate for love and affection and stability. I hope all of these children ended up with better families. It shocks me sometimes, the casual cruelty some people display - and don't see anything wrong with their own appalling actions.

Yes, it was extraordinarily cruel to “rehome” her adopted children but unsurprising given her track record. Somebody once called her Joyce Me Me Me Maynard, which is quite apt. I very much hope the new family gave those girls the love and security they deserved.