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Saturday, September 14, 2013

Mom Fail

There is not one other hashtag that irritates me like #momfail.

Why am I irritated by it? Because for some reason we judge ourselves so harshly that every little misstep we make is a fail. At the same time, we don't judge others this harshly.

But we want to project this perfect image onto others of the life that we're living. We may not do it intentionally, but other people see only the perfect happy lives we choose to post in pictures on social media. They don't see the not-so-happy moments, so they don't think they exist.

Hey baby, I bet she doesn't even edit this photo. #momfail
A friend sent me a message the other day in the middle of a nap meltdown (her daughter, not her) and said that she gives me props for being a stay at home mom and having it down so awesomely.

I kid you not, ten minutes before she sent that message, Isaiah was in his exersaucer, peed through his diaper, and was standing in a puddle of his own pee. Why, you ask? Because I forgot to change his diaper. Like you're supposed to do that more than once a day. Whatever. So right in the middle of my #momfail I got a compliment that I have it all together. Oh, if you only knew.

There are so many things to share that could qualify as #momfails of my own, but I really don't care. When I looked at Isaiah and saw what appeared to be his thighs crying yellow tears, I laughed. And then I cleaned it up. And moved on. No need for a #momfail. No use crying over excess urine.

Today I was sitting in the lobby of the spa waiting for my friend Jennifer, who is the most fab esthetician that ever was, to arrive. While I was sitting there worrying about the fact that my son was with my mom, refused his bottle, and was clearly going to starve to death, I fell asleep. Like asleep. In the lobby. And when I woke up, I wasn't even embarassed. I'm a mom. I'm tired. Judge away. Oh, and if you want more to judge, Jennifer waxes off my mustache for me.

You know why things like #momfail exist? BECAUSE OF PINTEREST. Excuse me while I go make six dozen cupcakes, do 10 perfect butt lifting exercises, and have my butler clean my already immaculate kitchen. And then I'll fire my butler for not just making the cupcakes in the first place.

When I got in, Jennifer and I started ranting about stuff like this. She brought up the point that the airbrushed and photoshopped models that were the target of the Dove campaign, are now the pictures of houses and food that are on Pinterest. And she is so right.

I hope you realize, the photos of Isaiah's nursery have been edited. I didn't do it, because I suck at photography (#momfail), but they've been brightened quite a bit by Bee who runs Hellobee. I'm sorry if you thought his room contained the sunlight of heaven, but it doesn't. He could never sleep if I let the heavenly light glow in there. Someone commented this his room was "perfectly pinterestable" and while I think it was a comment, it felt like an insult.

Nothing is wrong with doing things that you feel are "Pinterest Worthy", but it is wrong to feel like you have to. No one expects you to kill yourself over an upcycled canister set, or your made-at-home Pumpkin Spice Latte. They make those at Starbucks. Go there and get one.

Just before I sat down to write this post I discovered a substance that can no longer be called "spit up" since it's solid, therefore, it's vomit, on my dress. The crustiness indicates that it has been there quite a while.

#momfail

5 comments:

  1. I love this post and want to give it a huge hug! I was also laughing really hard at the idea of yellow tears from thighs!

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  2. ...and there it is. Beautiful honesty. Love the transparancy. All of those rants and random thoughts came together very well...yay! #momsrock

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  3. Really great post and something that we all need to stop and think about when we're trying to be super mom - or just trying to get through the day. :)

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  4. I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest. Mostly if I hash tag #momfail...I do it to poke fun at myself in an "I-can't-belive-that-actually-happened" sort of way, not that I actually think I'm a failure :)

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  5. Ugh, so true. In fairness I didn't know this hashtag existed, but I just joined twitter, #hashtagvirgin. But even blogging is hard b/c there's so many blogs with all these professional looking people and photos and it's like you can't keep up! My son is now 4 months old and I've finally figured out I do things my way, our house does not look like it came out of a pottery barn magazine and we eat frozen dinners or fast food every night. #reality

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