First Mother’s Day - DH didn’t put anything on socials

[Genie98]

AIBU to be a bit gutted that my DH didn’t put a post up on socials yesterday to mark my first Mother’s Day? My feeds were full of other posts celebrating their Mum’s and I was hoping DH would have done something to mark the occasion. He has done the odd birthday post in the past and posted about our engagement/wedding etc so it’s not that he has never used it.

Just feeling a bit deflated and a bit jealous of my mum friends who had lovely messages and photo’s from their OH’s.

Social media is all fake. Who are you trying to impress?

This wouldn't bother me. In fact I prefer not to be mentioned on social media, it's fake. I like real world interactions.

Increasingly people are ditching social media for a multitude of reasons. Maybe he is just detached from social media himself it just simply wasn't on his spectrum of thinking.

DS is four. We have never posted about him on any form of social media.

Recently bumped into an old friend who said how surprised they were I was now a parent as “they’d missed it on social” and couldn’t believe I haven’t posted anything.

Are you aware of how cringey, and naff your generation can look at times? How fake? Your need for a public announcement states an awful lot about you as a person. Immature, needy and materialistic. Learn what is important in life and grow up.

This is batshit crazy.

Yes you can help how you feel. You can tell yourself to grow up and stop requiring public validation on social media, when your DH is actually with you on real life, letting you know you're appreciated.

This. If you use social media as a barometer of how well your life is going you will always always be disappointed.

You can help how you feel: you can have a good word with yourself and train yourself out of the shallow, self-validating addiction to performative posts about your "perfect" relationship. And if you value this relationship and your own self-esteem you'll start doing this sharpish.

From what you've posted, your OH went out of his way to spoil you and make you feel respected and cherished. There are women who don't get any acknowledgement of Mothers Day. Take a step back and ask what's really most important to you: a private demonstration of love and care or a shallow insta-worthy brag.

I don't think there's anything wrong with posting about your relationship on social media. But anyone who thinks this is the benchmark for whether they are loved and respected is in trouble.

its not a "bit" silly. Not wanting to post every minute detail of your life on social media is entirely normal.

I'm team DH all the way.

(incidentally whereas lots of women I know did post something about mother's day yesterday, not a single male friend did)

I’m annoyed even reading this nonsense so yes I can imagine your DH could well be.

Not annoyed at you personally OP but at the fact that people buy into social media to this degree.

Your validation as a mother shouldn’t come from an instagram post. Did your baby smile at you? You got a card and presents. You even felt the need to post about those on social media. And still not satisfied. It must be difficult to care so much about such things so try to stop and have confidence in your own worth as a person and as a mum, think about the role model you want to be.

I put a post of DD on a couple of days after her birth because DH has family in another country and I have family the other side of this country. So I post on FB (with strict privacy settings) so that they can all see, rather than having to do many separate messages (even WhatsApp groups would be loads of different ones). It means they can see the changes in her but no one is forced to respond and we don't spend all our free time in family conversations, cos our families are huge. Otherwise, we don't use it.

People were surprised because they didn't know I was pregnant. She's three now, so she was an end of pandemic pregnancy, so we weren't out and about too much. I didn't post anything about pregnancy or mat leave etc, because what's the point of that? "Look how massive I am"?

Wind em up and watch em go...

Why enjoy a lovely bunch of flowers and a private celebration when you can post on socials to let EVERYONE know just how #blessed you are and how you’re going to #makememories 🙄 we are royally fucked if the bar is this low for life.

Am I completely missing the point????

I don't get this. Why does a social media announcement matter so much?

Is it so you can get comments from others to tell you that you're a good mum? Do you like to count the likes or views? Do you want a certain person to see it?

Surely, the only person whose opinions matter is your child??

Can't understand the hundreds of posts that come up every year that women are disappointed with their presents on Mothers Day. To most people, a handmade card is sufficient and marks the day beautifully. Now people are unhappy because there isn't a big song and dance about them on social media. Hell fire, there was somebody yesterday complaining that their children wanted to share her mini eggs.

Your biggest gift in life is your children. Remember that.

Nah. I have young children and am in the right age group. It’s fricking cringe and anyone on my feed who does it gets muted and loses a little bit of respect from me. Believe me - I have also posted my share of cringe online, but now people should know better. People posting pictures of their bouquets yesterday, like a big competition of whose partners and kids are more thoughtful. Just ring them and say thanks! I do still like holiday pics within reason but that’s about it.

There is a massive swing back to analogue and offline / IRL moments especially for young people. It’s only the deeply cringe people who still do it in my experience.

YABU. I can only assume it is people in a particular age group or social group that do this, as I didn’t see a single post on FB of this description- clearly none of my friends have husbands/partners that do this.

I saw a couple of posts from friends celebrating their own mums or saying that they miss their mums. But absolutely no posts from men celebrating their partners. I didn’t really know this was a ‘thing’. I absolutely wouldn’t expect or need my DH to do this.

Oh FFS not another one 🙄

I was just about to add something very similar.

Social media is not real life. If it's making you question things about your life and feel discontented, then step away.

Posting on socials is no indicator of how supportive a partner is, how happy the poster is nor how long a relationship will last. In fact, in my experience, often the more performative public posts are papering over the cracks.

One of my friend's husbands posted a photo on Mothers Day of an amazing breakfast he had made for my friend, all set out next to a vase of flowers and card. All perfectly filtered for Instagram. Along with a caption about what a brilliant mum she is and how much their 2 year old adores her and that they were going to spend the whole day spoiling her.

I actually cringed at how staged it was and wondered whether that was the reality of the day or just for social media.

I completely agree with this.

I'm in my mid 40s. This sort of thing makes me so glad to be the age I am!

My DH hasn't even got a Facebook account. Never bothered with Instagram and hasn't got a clue what Tiktok is. As long as Mothers Day was acknowledged and you felt appreciated, why does it need to be posted on social media? Can't you see it's all fake and performative?

Social Media is merely a choice. You can participate, you can not as well.

But one thing for sure is that if you place this crazy level of importance on your DH posting gushing pictures and reels of your Mother's Day and then get incredibly upset that he chooses not to, you really do have a problem with the hold that SM has over you.

It simply is not important. Your DH didn't feel any need to post and I don't blame him in the slightest. He chose to make the day nice for you and your child.

Can you really not see how shallow it is that you place more importance on his lack of SM activity, over his actual actions on the day?

If you're old enough to have a child, then your my DDs' and neice and nephews' generation. And they'd all roll their eyes at you.

I'm far from convinced that all the 98% of Mumsnetters who voted YANBU are considerably older than you.

98% voted that OP IS being unreasonable.