Why You Need to Stop Letting Instamoms Make you Feel Bad!

I know you follow them, those moms, on social media whose lives are seemingly perfect. Their homes are impeccably organized and decorated. Their hair, makeup, and outfits are always perfectly done. Their children are always well groomed, drinking green smoothies, and getting along with their siblings. Their families go on those dreamy vacations to exotic locations, and everyone looks SO happy. These moms are like Regina George of social media. There is something about them that you love, but at the same time, you feel envious, and they always end up making you feel a little bit bad about yourself. You find yourself comparing your life to theirs. How do they even keep their houses so perfect when you have toys strewn about every room in your house, and piles of laundry to be folded sitting on your dining room table? How are they always so put together when you haven’t taken a proper shower in a week? How do they capture all those beautiful loving photos of their children when you can’t even leave yours alone in a room together for fear of one legitimately try to kill the other? And your last family vacation wasn’t all smiles and sandcastles, but more like tantrums and travel delays. You wonder what you are doing wrong, and why you don’t have it all together like those other moms.

Let me ask you this.

Does your love story reflect that of a Hollywood RomCom?!

Does your sex life look like scenes from a porno?!

Probably not. In fact, if you met someone who had Hollywood-like expectations for their romance or expected sex to happen as it does in porn… you would think that the person is straight up delusional. Those things are fantasy, designed to entertain, allow you to escape reality, and dream for a little bit.

What if I then told you that these moms are selling you the same thing, FANTASY. Some of them have actually openly admitted that they don’t want to share the not so great stuff (aka the REAL LIFE SHIT) that happens because they “like to focus on the positives” or perhaps they just don’t want to taint the fairytale they have so carefully curated and profit from. Yes, it’s true, a picture is worth a 1000 words, but those 1000 words could tell you the real story behind the picture. The photos of their perfect home don’t show the piles of toys they shoved in the corner. Maybe they always look so put together because they shoot all their content on 1 or 2 days of the week, and they look disheveled and homeless for the rest. About their kids who seem to drink green smoothies, maybe they just took that shot on their first sip, and immediately after that, the smoothie was thrown across the kitchen floor. And their dreamy vacation photos are all from day 2 because days 3–7 were an absolute nightmare.

I am, in no way, saying that these women aren’t happy and don’t have wonderful lives. All I am saying is that these women have taken their everyday lives, extracted the very best moments, and served them up to you on the silver platter that is Instagram. They are selling a dream version of motherhood, and you’re buying. The problem arises when you cannot separate the dream from reality. It is easy when you realize you are being sold a story, like in a movie or a fiction novel. But it becomes harder when the person, selling you the story is a real person, sharing pieces of their real life. If you can follow these women, enjoy their content for the art that it is, and then come back to reality and not feel bad about your life, then you’re all good and continue to follow along. But if you, after seeing these photos, continually find yourself feeling like you’re falling short, then do yourself a favor and hit the unfollow button.

If you are looking for some moms to follow on Instagram who keep it real while still inspiring you, here are 5!

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