To find the overly nostalgic social media posts about school and parenting in general quite toxic?

[NeedMyDress]

I have noticed a growing trend now where every parent is almost expected to lament their children starting school, or starting a new school year. Complete with doorstep photos and a post about how quickly time goes etc etc.

Since when did we all have to publicly break down over our children growing up and the passing of time?

I am a parent and I do have nostalgic moments but also try to celebrate the milestones, I feel like now it's the accepted norm for parents to publicly weep over each passing year. Does anyone else find it a bit much?

Mine starts tomorrow, and I'm not going to cry. I did when he left nursery because he'd been there 4 years and they were brilliant, particularly during the Covid debacle.

If it's your only or last child it does feel like a total identity shift. I'm working more days, with a totally different structure to the weeks. He's starting activities he was too young for until reception. No more termtime trips out/using annual leave whenever we want. I think it's ok to miss the days out with a pram, even if you found it mind-numbingly dull (like me!!)

@Comedycook I am also a lone parent and was delighted for mine to go back too. I was usually broke all summer so I didn't get to 'make memories' I just had to get through it.

I agree. Kids are born, they go to school, they leave school. One post today was along the lines of "i can't believe it's the first time in 17 years I've only got one going back to school". This same parent a few years ago posted a photo of a primary leavers party in a park with all the parents crying! It's very odd

Yes.

I think some people forget how old Facebook is. I‘ve been on Facebook since it’s infancy where you had to have a legitimate uni-provided email address to join. Think it was 2006 that Facebook became available to everyone of age. Some of my classmates from secondary had their first child right after graduation and those children entered their first year of uni this year. I’ve watched their children grow from tots to teenagers on SM.

I have photos of my first day of term in winter uniform and summer uniform. I do value the photos and have taken similar photos. What I have never done is share them to social media as I don't want to be part of all that. I only know of one or two people who do this to be fair. They're the people who share everything, though, including, and especially, the world book day dressing up.

I've had this from a friend with children a couple of years older than mine. Her husband had to remove her from the classroom crying when they first dropped their eldest off at reception though so I think she's particularly irrational about it.

Her children had been in nursery for years, so I'm not sure exactly what was so upsetting for her but she seems to think I should be upset too, as DD1 starts reception tomorrow.

I don't think it's healthy for the kids either. We're raising a very entitled generation and if we mark every single occasion with balloons and sobbing, they will think the world revolves around them.

Come and join my social media. Along with the overtly emotional posts I have a fair few "hoorah...back to school you buggers" memes and the like.

I LOVE seeing my own sons' doorstep photos as they pop up in my FB memories. At 14 and left home my doorstep taking photos are over and I love seeing other people's.

I agree for the most part but I don’t think the doorstep photos necessarily have to be accompanied by weeping and wailing about “my babyyyy is growing up, slow down time!!”

I take them because I enjoy seeing her grow up and I celebrate the milestones. Never understood why people can’t cope with their kids getting older, I mean it’s what they do.

The only time I cried was the first time I dropped DS1 at university.
I drove off, parked up and cried for a bit.

I enjoy seeing friends photos but cringe when the photo is accompanied by an attention seeking, gushing over-sentimental announcement.

Please. That is said about every new generation. The same was said about us Millennials when I was in uni.

Someone posted one on my Facebook feed and called it ‘the obligatory back-to-school photo’.

I felt like commenting ‘it’s not obligatory’.

Eh, I hate the back to school and first day of school photos too, but for a different reason. My kid is autistic, was utterly traumatised by school, hasn't had a viable school placement for well over a year now and is now attempting to steel herself to try one more mainstream school before we give up entirely. There is no excitement about new uniform here, no excitement about anything. Just anxiety and a feeling of worthlessness (absolutely NOT coming from us BTW, we are so proud of her regardless!), because why can everyone else seem to manage to just go to school when she can't?

Of course none of this occurs to my friends who all post their shiny happy first day of school pictures on social media. And nor should it, really. But I hide everyone from my newsfeed nonetheless... it hurts to see most of what is posted when our lives are so different.

Can highly recommend unfollowing all Facebook friends (your newsfeed will just be groups you've chosen to be part of that way, and you can always click on a friend's page if you really want to see what they've posted). And stay the hell away from Instagram!

I've posted about this before but a friend years ago was the school secretary. On the first day for Reception starters she said there were two types of, usually, mothers. The first would arrive in floods of tears, have to be almost forcibly evicted from the teaching area then sit outside her office sobbing for ages. The second would breeze in, see that her child was settled then leave quickly almost doing a jIg outside her office!

Delete instagram and Facebook. It's wonderful getting rid of them.

Ah, it's just a barely composed comment to accompany a picture of their child surely. I wouldn't read much into it. I doubt they sat sobbing into their cornflakes as they posted it

Toxic? Seems a strong word for a school photo. I dont post my kids in that way, but I just brush by the posts I don't want to see so it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

And mine. And I'm middle aged. The first generation of home computer gaming so we were also not going to develop any social skills or go outside unless forced to.

Very similar to posts on MN recently about the youth of today 😂

I have a photo of me on my first day of school, taken 37 years ago... so it's not a new thing, we just didn't have Facebook in the 80s.

Some people are overly totes emosh about it and I honestly don't get it at all - like a few others, I mainly feel relief my child is getting older. But I much prefer my mostly lovely 4.5 year old to the baby years. I suppose if you like babies and small children you would feel sad they're growing up.

I'll do the doorstep pic, until he doesn't want me to anymore. I like seeing my friends' children getting bigger, especially the ones I don't see in real life very often. No wailing and weeping though, I get a whole six hours to myself on Fridays now! Can't quite believe it and am fully expecting him to be ill every Friday 😂

I think what I find difficult about some of the posts (not all of them, to be fair - there’s nothing wrong with a lovely picture of a kid in their uniform), but some of the more saccharine poems and so on - is the implication that they’re now somehow being taken away from the parent, that every second of the pre-school years should have been cherished because now the best bit is over.

The excessive amount of adults at the first day for my child yesterday and the weeping and collective behaviour of half the parents led to a very disrupted and upset class. My child was slightly late for unavoidable reasons but he was dropped at the door with a see you later and just went in sat down and got on with what they were doing, staff didn't hear a peep from him. Unfortunately it also meant they didn't spend much time with him either as they were dealing with the kids that were upset 🤷🏻‍♀️

The reason I used the word toxic was because of the overly sentimental and nostalgic messages accompanying many of these photos. The photos themselves are not a problem - it's the fact many are now alongside gushing poems designed to try and move people to tears, or posts delving down an equally emotional rabbit hole. The toxicity comes from the idea that starting school is a terrible event that all proper mothers must dread as we should all want our children to remain young forever and by our sides 24/7. It's a completely ridiculous sentiment that is starting to permeate motherhood, that we should all partake in some kind of grief and if we don't signpost it we aren't feeling it.

I don't think they are meant to be school Is a terrible thing I think people get over gushy but that isn't toxic just over sentimental but some parents are.

It’s the posts from people when they find out what school their children have got that make me laugh 😂
all normal state primary schools

“ oh I’m so proud Danny for his first choice of schools “ 🙈 like he didn’t do anything to get in.