I do understand that not everyone sees each little smile, smirk, or quirky new activity my daughter displays with the same pride or joy with which I see them. Just in the same way I usually couldn't care less about your fiftieth "vague post" of the day, or the perfect apple turnover someone made. But here's the thing, last night, it occurred to me as I watched my daughter saying her version of "duckie" in the tub last night, that I don't document and share for others, I do it for myself.
Not every day of being a mom is easy. I knew it wouldn't be when I signed up for the job. But frankly, some days are downright hard.
Some days I feel like all I do is string together an endless series of 'nos,' 'don'ts,' and 'pleases.' (I literally just set off a barrage of 'nos' that rivals any semi-automatic weapon on the market, in hopes of keeping her from trying to eat bird poop again today.) Some days, I feel like I move from one mom failure to the next, from the moment we get up until the moment she finally gives up and goes to sleep. Some days are so ordinary, that it feels like I have been on auto pilot for hours and I don't know how we got through the day.
While you're being a mom, you don't often have time or the wherewithal to think about how far you have come from the moment you left the hospital with this tiny creature you knew nothing about, but for which you were entirely responsible. The only things that I have ever been able to equate it to are being caught in a water park wave pool, or working a shift in a veterinary emergency hospital. There is no thinking, there is only doing and managing. I know, I make it sound awful. A lot of moms wouldn't admit it, but sometimes, it is.
One of the great paradoxes of social media is that it is inherently anti-social, and even if you think you're sharing a wide cross section of yourself with people, it's up to them which snippets they look at or care about. That usually leads to people receiving an entirely skewed idea of who you are and what your life is like. Depending on which things your friends and acquaintances choose to take in, you are either incredibly successful and living "the life," or you are despondent and on the verge of suicide, or a mass murder. You don't get to decide what people think about you and your life.
I think that's at least one of the reasons why people get so annoyed by mommy spamming. Their perception of the situation is very different from the person sharing. They don't know that the photo of your child stuffing a green bean up her nose is the funniest thing you will probably see all week, or that that moment is the only time today that she wasn't grabbing handfuls of your 15-year-old dog's skin and twisting it with glee as you frantically tried to keep peace. They don't know that you are scared of all of the things you don't know how to do for, or teach your child--or how much you hope you aren't screwing it up like your mom did.
Those brief snippets of documented affirmation probably don't mean much to the "been there, done thats" on your friend list, or to childless folks with whom you worked ten years ago. But they are the snippets that help you get through the not-so-awesome days.
And, now, thanks to Facebook's daily reminders of the moments you've shared in the past, they are the gifts that keep on giving. When you are just trying to keep the house intact and everyone alive until the end of the day, imagine how helpful it can be to see the photo of your daughter holding her head up for the first time during tummy time--it reminds you that you occasionally get it right. On those really awesome days where everything is going smoothly and you see the photo of your daughter playing the drum during music class--you might even be able to look at yourself and say "you got this."
So, at the risk of annoyance and alienation, I will continue to snap photos of the seemingly mundane, and the blissfully fantastic moments, and I will post them everywhere I might need to see them later. I know what my real life is like--it's pretty good, some days overwhelming, others dull as a butter knife, and absolutely fantastic. All of those things rolled into one. And if you're on my friend list, you get to see it all!
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