The Perfect Mom Competition

Scrolling through social media, I am sick.

I see that Amy’s family made it to 9:00 am church again – buttoned up, hair curled, and smiling.

And then I see that Sally got a message from her daughter’s teacher saying that she is such a great sharer with the rest of the class.

Next post features a lovely beef wellington made by Kelly on a weeknight!

Suddenly I am thinking to myself, Maybe I don’t want to be so connected to my friends anymore, HA!

Because there I was, on the couch, having my first solid breath of the day – a breath of relief that I didn’t get a call from the principal’s office over my son, that I finally got a quiet moment to call my client back (after 2 days of waiting), and that my kids would actually have clean clothes to wear to school tomorrow.

It’s about celebrating the small stuff, right?

I hesitate to even share the chaos that is my life. Whether that it is out of hope of a reputation that I have my sh*t together (but does anyone actually think I do), trying to keep up with everyone else, or purely because I don’t even have time to draft a post on Instagram, I am not entirely sure.

But I want to make space for this chaos on social media.

It is supposed to be a platform I can escape to to catch up with my friends when none of us have time to grab a drink. It is supposed to be a platform I find inspiration from to try something new. It is supposed to be a platform that connects me to people, but instead I oftentimes find myself wanting to isolate afterwards.

Because, no, I can’t relate to cooking dinner 7 nights a week, 5:00 am workouts, and hearing praise about my children from their teachers.

In fact, that is so unrelatable that I find myself discouraged. It makes me question, Am I a good enough Mom?

Then I remember how excited my daughter was to find money under her pillow from the tooth fairy, even if it was money I took from her piggy bank.

MOM WIN!

Us moms put this pressure on each other and ourselves to be the “perfect mom.” Oftentimes, it doesn’t come from our children.

We do this by asking our kid what so-and-so's mom made for dinner when they went over to play and apologizing to our guests over a messy house when we spent time frantically cleaning it.

By always putting on a front of perfection, we create this undiscussed competition amongst ourselves of “Who is a Perfect Mom.”

Yet, what we really need is to lock arms and rally together over our relatable chaos because, in embracing this, we take one less pressure off ourselves.

That is why I am introducing “Mom Fail Fridays.”

This is the space for relatable chaos on social media, where we will realize that our child wasn’t the only one who didn’t know it was pajama day last week.

Or that you aren’t the only one who forgot their kid at home and left for school.

Or that has a toddler who cusses every once in a while.

So that when we finally sit on the couch and have our first solid breath of the day, we can laugh together, comfort each other, and end the competition for “The Perfect Mom.”

XOXO,

Julie