Ok, so we’re all guilty of it.
Sharing that strategically snapped selfie. The one that shows how much fun you’re having cooking muffins with your little angel, but sneakily doesn’t show the absolute carnage they created with the eggs and flour.
Or the photo of you all enjoying a blissful walk in the park, but doesn’t show the ‘hell hath no fury like a toddler who wanted to put the straw into the apple juice “his-self”‘ tantrum that occurred just moments before.
Social media is rife with these idyllic visions of mother and fatherhood, making all the rest of us who at 11am are still trying to have a shower and get clothes on the baby, feel like utter failures.
No one truly knows how this parenting thing works, which is why we’re so eager and quick to compare ourselves to others.
We’re desperately trying to see how everyone else is coping and check that what we’re doing is ‘right’.
But what we fail to realise is that there is no ‘right’ and we’re all bumbling along, surviving day to day. Plus on those incredibly rare occasions when you think you have it all figured out, something inevitably changes.
Like when you finally have a routine with the baby napping at roughly the same time everyday and then bam, they decide “no, do you know what I don’t fancy napping now. I think I’ll stay up and then fall asleep just before that really expensive baby class you’d booked me onto”.
As a photographer I know better than most how misleading photos can be. All of those happy smiley newborn photos with everyone looking fresh and totally relaxed in a gorgeously perfect setting.
What they don’t show is that this is the first and probably only time that mum will be attempting to put on any makeup for at least the next 3 months.
They don’t show that both parents have had less than 3 hours sleep, or that moments after the photo was taken the baby pooped all over dads new white t-shirt.
I totally get it. Sharing these happy yet misleading insights into our lives gives us a boost. It’s lovely to have others look at you and think, ‘wow look how well they’re doing’.
But it’s not real and just fuels the overwhelming pressure that parents, particularly it seems mums, feel to be perfect.
Baby Dove recently did a survey and found that 9 out of 10 mums feel the pressure to be perfect. Many said that it was the glossy representations of motherhood on social media and in magazines that were mostly to blame.
“Parents seem to be bombarded with polished staged and often highly retouched images of seemingly confident, coping, idealised mum and dads in the very media they turn to for support”- parenting broadcaster Liz Fraser.
The wider media needs to change, but in the meantime we can help one another and start embracing the imperfect.
Bloggers such as Katie Kirby with ‘Hurrah for Gin’, Olivia Siegl with ‘The Baby Bible’ and Constance Hall with ‘Like a Queen’ are leading the way thanks to their often brutally honest accounts of motherhood, that leave us all thinking “thank god I’m not the only one”.
So here’s to embracing the fact that none of us are perfect. Embrace it, share it and know that you’re never, ever alone.
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