Are you a ‘disney’ mum?

[Caterpillarmama]

I’m not sure if that’s the right expression but there’s numerous mums online who portray themselves as the most perfect mothers/families! Everything their child eats is homemade, they give out little homemade brownies tied in paper with string ‘just because’, they don’t watch tv, they never shout, always spending quality time together.

On Instagram/youtube, I see posts and reels of people letting their children help them peel the veg to prep Sunday lunch, baking a cake for pudding and spending wholesome days together picking flowers and walking through meadows etc. I know online is not real life but is there anyone who genuinely lives like this?

Not saying we don’t do those things, but that would be a tiny part of our day and wouldn’t fill a whole day. They never mention the children arguing, making a mess, irritating their parents, whining etc. Letting them prep dinner would be a nightmare and take hours and we’re already pushed for time!

YABU: yes this is how we live
YANBU: we have elements of this but this isn’t our daily life.

If you genuinely live like this and hold down a full time job etc, raising your children, how do you do it? Especially as a single parent! Tips welcome.

I doubt anyone lives like this.it would be exhausting! The Internet gives a false impression as most people cherry pick the best bits to show off. I don't pay any attention really,our friend always had clips of her on the beach with DC. In reality she was a working mum ,just showing clips of her an hour after work!

It's 2025. We KNOW that social media is largely fake and portraying a highly exaggerated fiction.

Right? stop bloody clicking on it and you'll stop seeing it!

Dd and I spent a couple.of hours baking together yesterday. Today our 'us' time.is watching the Simpsons togethernwrapped in a fluffy blanket. You do whatever you can to get through and enjoy spending time with them.

No OP it's not real life

People do these things but don't have real life

I could easily take 5 photos showing 5 positive seconds of our day doing 5 different activities that would look lovely... however it doesn't show that one activity took longer to set up than they actually spent on it. And the moaning when my youngest didn't want to use their scooter anymore haha! Or all the other bits that are easy to focus on. I've just got better at focusing on those 5 positive seconds for my sanity!

I was a sahm 20 years ago before the DCs went to school and yes basically lived like this. But it was because we had one income and didn't have spare money for eating out, takeaways, ready meals, days out where we spent money etc

I had to be creative with entertainment and activities which meant a lot of activities together in the home, walks, train rides, even a bus trip to Sainsbury's was fun and exciting for the dcs.

There's no way I would imagine this being sustainable whilst working full time or a single parent.

@Caterpillarmama If someone was to be this "perfect" as you call it you would never know about it because they wouldn't spend their time showing the world how perfect they are. This is all for show just like Megan Markle playing the perfect housewife to sell stuff.

Manufactured SM lives aren't real.

Umm we went to see snow white and Lilo and stitch. That's as Disney as it gets here

No-one lives like this but you've acknowledged that already?

"They never mention the children arguing, making a mess, irritating their parents, whining etc."

I don't understand parents who constantly have their phones welded to their hands, ready to photo/video their kids every move.

But I understand even less, those who follow them on SM which encourages them to do that to their kids.

Why are people so interested in looking at this shit?

The more you watch that kind of thing, the more that the algorithm will send you that kind of content. Make an effort to ignore/scroll past that kind of thing and it will eventually stop.

It's all fake

Even if they did genuinely live in some Carrie Johnson fairytale world of daffodils, chickens, soft focus Laura Ashley ruffles and perfect tousled tots in £100 wellies, the mere fact that they’re posting it on social media tells you something about them.

What it reveals is that just living it isn’t enough to make them happy. They’re insufferable braggers who are desperate for validation. That, to me, takes away any kudos because you know it’s staged for an audience. It’s therefore inauthentic and a bit pathetic.

A couple of weeks ago, I took my son to a playgroup thing, and he had a couple of run ins with a slightly older boy who kept snatching toys, arguing and pushing. His mum was chasing after him constantly.

At bedtime that day, I got a message on Instagram from the mum apologising. I was impressed she found me! She said he’d been a bit full on and it’d been a tough day. No harm done.

I did get a wry smile when I looked at her profile, though - it seems she’s a semi-local “influencer”, and her most recent post was a highlight reel of the playgroup and all about how much fun they’d had and how wholesome it was to get out into nature and make new friends…

Your response seems so bitchy, she probably did have a nice day, it sounds like her son is also a handful, yet rather than expected others to accept that she's gone to the trouble of finding you to apologize and you've googled her and been smug at her social media. Dunno, seems mean

No. We spend time outdoors and have homemade food but they also watch TV and eat McDonald's and cake and whine like every other normal kid.

I could easily find moments most days that made our lives look like this on social media, but it would be 1-5% of our daily reality and I don’t believe in offering your kids up as internet content.

Our lives are absolutely not that. But we do have moments of this that reflect the life other people post (I don’t use insta or any social media for my family). This might be the children doing a drawing challenge, or creating an amazing junk box model, building a den in the woods or us all playing a game. But these moments, whilst magical, are a fraction of our lives. I would adore this type of life but I work and therefore don’t have the headspace or time to curate it

Just stop watching this crap on social media. Seriously, it's just utter nonsense.

people letting their children help them peel the veg to prep Sunday lunch, baking a cake for pudding and spending wholesome days together picking flowers and walking through meadows etc

What’s odd about any of this? It’s pretty much how I spent my afternoon, I made a roast with my 6 year old while the toddler slept, then baked a cake with the toddler then we went for a walk to a local area, smelled the roses, ran around a bit and stopped in at a pub for a drink. I didn’t post it on any social media as I’d never post anything involving my kids and I left my phone at home but cooking with young children then going for a walk seems an incredibly unremarkable Sunday.

People who spend their time making that kind of content are doing it as their full time job. It is an act.

peel the veg to prep Sunday lunch, baking a cake for pudding and spending wholesome days together picking flowers and walking through meadows etc. I know online is not real life but is there anyone who genuinely lives like this?

Not every minute, of course, but much more like this than otherwise. Just normal life.

Hell no!

I was one circa 2008-2013. I worked ft and felt so guilty (they were first into creche and last out) that evenings and weekends was all about them having as much lovely and fun times as possible. My goal daily was to make them laugh and learn something etc etc. then I suppose life hit, debt, illnesses, exhaustion really and funnily enough even though then I became a sahm I just didn’t have the energy and fell back on screens and less home cooked food, also was a lot less enthusiastic, fun, educational really. God. Scary how you change

OP you know social media isn’t real don’t you?
read this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66719859