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?!

Or they have that dreadful dynamic where their teens treat them like shit and they simper round them. Urgh.

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.

Or perhaps he’s buggered off to the Bahamas without her so she has to attend the dance ‘recital’ alone.

Completely agree. Kids need to know their place. What monsters you’d create for yourself by putting off a phone call so they could make a noise. Never happened in my house and my two are now well-balanced and successful men.

Not necessarily. If you are on a low income, you couldn’t do any of the things on her ridiculous list! With the exception of the phone calls. Though in past times many families didn’t have phones!

It’s this indulgence and the consequences thereof that is making the teaching profession leave in droves. Sometimes children need to be told that mummy is on the phone and they should lump it and get on with it.

OTOH, some mummies are on their phones a ridiculous amount of time, completely ignoring their kids. I wonder if those kids are the well behaved ones in school? Very different times from when you had the landline in one room in your house.

It was the phone calls I referred to

Not a good way to parent: sets child up to fail/have tantrums when they DON'T get their own way. They do need to learn the world DOES NOT revolve around them, and that, even as a child, they should consider others too.
Parents need to give them the independence to have confidence in themselves, and to respect others too.

Like playing quietly because mum is on the phone (but I agree many parents are phone fixated)
Like understand that sometimes events clash, there will be other recitals, other holidays and hopefully many many years in which to do both
And understanding that mum has to work to help pay for things, and sometimes work obligates not being home before bedtime, but that it's perfectly OK to put one's self to bed without her, the world will not stop...

I've got one of these on FB. She posts utter dross about breathing her children in etc. I know it's because she is ridden with anxiety though. She suffers awful mum guilt and genuinely would nod her head and do everything you've outlined in that poem.

She has an awful relationship with her partner and she doesn't trust him to parent alone. It's awful. She will have no friends left by the time her kids are at school. I don't know if she will care though...

The thing is, I'm a fairly into gentle parenting (but not a pushover) and I'm a SAHM. So, like you OP, I've sacrificed a fair amount. I still expect my DH to pull his weight though and allow me to have equal amounts of free time. It's good for everyone in the family.

😂

Surely, your first role as a mother is not to make an utter twat of yourself on social media posting this sort of saccharine shite?

Vomit inducing nonsense.
The reason there so many badly behaved children out there is because far too many people adopt this rubbish. Sometimes it’s good for children to realise the world and everyone in it doesn’t stop for them.

I don't think they will feel guilty (and I hope you're not! 😊) because it's so utterly ridiculous.

I'd more likely feel sorry for the individual who wrote it.

I think with motherhood, it can be very isolating and once you get past the baby stage you realise that you're trying to build a decent human being, not just meet its most immediate needs, and self doubt can quickly arise. I'm normally fairly OK at feeling that I'm just going to do what I feel is best but sometimes I sink into insecurities as I know many do and I really feel that posts like this, and this is the most vomit inducing one I've read, can really be detrimental to the mental health of those mothers who do doubt themselves or are finding it hard and I fear they may be damaging. This particular post was extreme but there are lots in a similar vein and it feels scarily toxic.