AIBU or are those gushy mum posts on social media just a bit much sometimes

[Dracarys1]

This is my first AIBU post but I was spurred on reading a Facebook shared post that basically implied that in order to be a good mother you have to prioritise your child over everything else in your life. It was one of those gushy ones that I seem to see all the time. And it made me feel really uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, I have two small children and I love them to the ends of the earth. I'm also a SAHM so I do often live and breathe my children. But I hate the narrative that in order to be a good mother you have to pretty much sacrifice everything that makes you you for your little ones every whim. I don't think it's healthy for mum's to feel that if they are to be good mothers they have to always sacrifice themselves. I'll try to post the text in question because it really bothered me that this is the way some women feel they have to be in order to be good enough. Its unrealistic and puts so much pressure on mums to feel they are doing a good job. And people post them under a supportive guise but it actually just makes most normal mums feel a bit shit. So anyway AIBU or does anyone hate this sort of post?!

Definitely American. There's more and more of this insidious 'trad wife' bullshit popping up every day which then gets grabbed by random pages and filters down to chronic meme re-posters who don't consider the context and the (all too often) creepy movements that are coopting these fluffy little guilt trips.

I hate to see them pop up in my feed but it does tickle me how often they're shared by people who could and would not in a million years practice this shit behind closed doors. They also seem to be the people who post long glowing tributes to the same children/partners they endlessly moan about in person.

I have a friend who posts this kind of nonsense. Lots of “making memories” hashtags too. Actually she is struggling immensely and motherhood is not what she thought it would be.

I wouldnt be going out for dinner if my child had a fever and i probably wouldnt go on holiday if my child had a dance competition or what not. Its the way this is written thats sickly.

People share this type of tosh to make themselves feel better about letting down everyone else in their lives.

It justifies the fact that they are a flaky friend and they've just let their colleagues down for the nth time because Lake felt a bit hot on their way out the door, after being tormented by Hemlock for the last 30 minutes.

You don’t have to feel guilty though, you can just think wow what a load of shit. Or if you’re nicer something about how anyone who truly believes that must be struggling in someway. And yes I would be (and have) going for dinner if my child had just a fever, because lucky them, they’ve got a more than capable father.

While I'm respectful of our right to parent how we like, MN is quite skewed towards mums that seem permanently attached to their kids IMHO.

The outrage/passive aggressive digs if people don't want to BF, or heaven forbid, LEAVE THEIR BABY with someone else for a few hours.

There was a post recently from a BF mum who was clearly heading towards a serious breakdown from feeding on demand and getting no sleep. The responses were mainly it's only for two years (!), your baby needs you and you'll look back on it as such a special time (I'm 15 years later and still waiting..).

I love my kids. They've had a lot of my time and focus. But I exist beyond being a mum. They also have a dad that's perfectly capable of being an equal parent. I don't want to go back to a time when mums were expected to do everything and their needs didn't matter. And I'm setting an example to my sons as future dads.

As for the gushy FB posts, they're hilarious. We have one who eclipses all others. Sadly I can't share specific examples as they'd be too outing. But we all sniggered when someone walked past #makingmemories mum on the school drive and heard her telling her primary school kids to F off. Don't think #swearymum made it onto one of her posts.

“It’s not being able to talk on the phone with a friend because your children are loud and wild in the background. It’s choosing them.⁣⁣”

My first thought was that’s poor parenting!

These poems are vomit inducing.

You do realise, anyone reading that, doesn't think the poster/sharer is a wonder mum.

They just skim through it, and think "twat" and continue scrolling.

I genuinely feel a bit sorry for people who do post like this, because they clearly think it portrays them as the former. But generally they are too self absorbed and self important for it to ever occur to them it's the latter.

No mention of fathers in that pile of old shite?

My mother used to come out with this shite

She once told me 'if your finding it hard,your not doing it right'

She once refused to babysit when I was really ill,which led me to a stay in hospital and a telling off for not getting help sooner

She told me 'you've abandoned those kids-no matter how ill you get,they come first'

I could have died

She was hardly a perfect parent-she was (and still is) narcissistic,abusive,negligent and selfish-she never thought twice about putting herself first-to the point she was only there enough in my childhood to not let anyone think she'd abandoned me!

My mental health was on the floor by about dds first birthday with this shite peddled down my ear

I don’t agree with any of that. Ghastly.

Sounds like a sad and lonely woman - who by her own fault or otherwise never gets to spend time with her friends or have fun - who is trying to make herself feel happier by pretending this is what motherhood is supposed to look like.

It's Facebook. Of course it's bilge. Solution is to not be in Facebook. If it's not this kind of fundamentalist shit then it's neo-nazi shit packaged up for boomers.

I’m guessing she isn’t parenting any teenagers yet 😉 Mwhahahahahaha!!!! Let’s see what motivational quote fits that stage 😂😂😂

It’s a load of nonsense platitudes, isn’t it? You’re probably doing more for your children anyway as a SAHM. Like you definitely won’t be going for drinks ‘after work’.

You probably aren’t planning a trip to the Bahamas anyway, and, if you were you’d hardly cancel if a tiny tots dance class, which you are paying for, was holding a ‘recital’ that week. OTOH, you might plan a holiday around kids commitments with plenty of advanced warning.

You probably don’t go out for dinner often anyway, but cancelling for a sick child is probably more dependent on the reliability is the babysitter than your wonderfulness as a mother.

And as a PP pointed out not being able to talk on the phone if there is a rumpus in the background isn’t really a choice.

I would immediately unfriend / unfollow anyone who posted such tripe. Not just because it's insidious and unfeminist, but also because I couldn't be friends with anyone so utterly cringeworthy and dimwitted.

You never see real ones like

"real motherhood is standing squished in the airing cupboard ramming cooking chocolate down your throat to try and gain the sanity to cope with the trashed house downstairs"

As someone whose mother didn't 'choose them' but prioritised her many many relationships to my considerable detriment (married 5 times!), I understand the sentiment- and it has definitely flavoured my own parenting style so I get the message but I still don't believe that kids get to own my life like that.

I wouldn't go out for dinner if my kids were sick though. But most of the other stuff is martyred garbage.

I’m guessing she isn’t parenting any teenagers yet 😉 Mwhahahahahaha!!!! Let’s see what motivational quote fits that stage

Today was a good day. Kevin cleared up a tiny patch of his floordrobe so I remembered the carpet was once beige.

He did not pinch the loo roll from my bathroom as his had run out so I had a hideous post-wee realisation at 3am. He also did not throw the empty cardboard roll on the floor as it cannot be put in any form of bin or receptacle.

Kevin did not answer his phone for six hours but was miraculously able to call me from Nando's to ask for £20 to be transferred to his bank account.

Kevin is surgically attached to his phone. Kevin has not gone swimming with his mobile phone in his pocket on holiday for the second year running, rendering it very much dead. Again.

#mumofteenageboys (another phrase I detest)

I agree with the one about staying home if they are sick but the rest of it raises entitled little gits! Why shouldn't a mum talk to a friend and the kids learn to be quiet (or amuse themselves in another room?)

Dds dance show is a massive amazing deal it’s in the calendar for about 6 months and we work around it. Cannot see how that scenario would ever occur anyway as would never hold it in the school holidays.

Plus our holidays are very important to us bar a kids leg hanging off we are not cancelling!

I don’t understand why parents (mostly mums ime) post gushing nonsense on birthdays eg ‘Happy 4th birthday, Johnny, you’ve been the best thing to ever happen in my life, I love you to the moon and back’ I’m like why? Your kid isn’t on Facebook, are you posting to show what a great parent you are? This despite ranting on Facebook last week about what a cheating shit their dad is and how his ‘slag’s children are more important than his own’ (actually saw this on fb some years ago)

I can't stand that gushing posts to your kids on Facebook thing either. Or when people post pics of their kids asleep or when they're poorly. My kids aren't on Facebook. If Facebook didn't have its uses for keeping up with school stuff and events I'd happily give it a miss. Life must have been happier before social media I think.

You don’t choose to parent your kids surely? You have to.
Maybe she’s finding it hard and wrote this to make herself feel a bit better?

When I see someone’s posted something like this I just assume the child’s father is incompetent/lazy/not involved etc, and this is the mum’s attempt to make herself feel better about it.

Surely anyone who does parent like this is going to be a cauldron of simmering resentment that eventually boils over, or is setting themselves up for a life of martyrdom. Neither is a good look.