Who do I follow?
Welcome to 2024. New year, new you?! Here's the one where we question our entire existence with every mind-numbing social media scroll.
As I sit here writing this, I’m wearing a black jumpsuit that’s a dupe of an overpriced Free People “hot shot onesie” that I learned about from an influencer and I’ve since decided will be my new uniform.1 I threw on a gray waffle sweater that another influencer told me I needed. I’m dreaming of the Olive and June mani system because I’m told it will change my life. What else? I’m drinking from a trendy glass that says “Cool Mom Club” in a bubbly retro font with a glass straw that my best friend gave me for Christmas. I’m just guessing that she was influenced. I just lit a candle like every good writer does. (The scent is rainkissed flora, if you must know.)
I’m looking around at all the toys my tiny son has acquired in such a short time on earth, most of which the all-knowing Internet has told me he needs in order to go to college and grow into a decent human. He’s already outgrown the playpen that was supposed to solve the problem, how do you get stuff done with a baby? (Shout-out to my cousin
who heavily influenced the launch of when she sent screenshots of amazing Google searches including this very question. Solidarity, sister.) Answer: You Amazon Prime an oversized playpen, fill it with toys, and say a prayer for five minutes of peace.We’ve now entered the toddler stage where my son stands on a “kitchen helper” tower and I give him bowls of marshmallows with a spoon and my husband asks him, “Can you make us some marshmallow soup?” This is, of course, some version of a sensory bin activity I’ve seen on Instagram. (Because “good moms” create sensory bins for their kids.) We bought ourselves about 7 minutes of quiet and the joy of watching a tiny human stuff his mouth full of questionably stale marshmallows. Am I a better mom now for facilitating this amazing growth opportunity? The jury is still out.
All of this to say, I am influenced. As are you, I suspect.
***
Like every other thoughtful and reflective person in the world, I have pondered out many windows starting about December 26th until now-ish as I contemplate my existence in 2023 and make grand plans for who I will become in 2024. On New Year’s Eve, I fell asleep on the couch at 10pm and my husband woke me up at 11:58, handed me a glass of Martinelli’s and a kiss. We swapped resolutions and mine included starting a book club, writing more, working out more, generally being a better version of myself, etc etc etc.
“What about being a good mom?” he asked.
Oh right… THAT.
OF COURSE, I’ve already been twisting myself up in complex knots about what kind of mom I am and want to become. It’s the heart behind starting this whole writing project, truly. Aren’t we all googling for answers and coming up short? So then we’re texting friends for their reassurance that we’re doing SOMETHING right and not actually harming our children? Can anyone out there please tell me if I’m doing this right and if I’m actually capable of being a good mom?
Aren’t we all asking this simple and impossible question for the ticket to “success” in motherhood: Who do I follow?
***
A few months ago, in a moment of disgust at my endless scrolling that left me feeling numb and pathetic, questioning my entire existence (is this a pattern for me?), I set a one minute restriction on my phone for social media. Yes, one minute. Daily. You can hit for one more minute very quickly. Then you can enter your passcode and unlock 15 minutes, one hour, or all day access. It’s a sick game that I play every day.
One of my resolutions is to scroll less. How much of my time is spent scrolling social media? How much of motherhood and my identity as a mother are shaped by images of people who I will never meet in real life?
’s book, Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture, has felt like a balm to my chapped soul. Her writing has confirmed that I’m not going crazy or in fact already crazy. And I’m not alone. Through her research, she seeks to understand how momfluencers—those who do and do not monetize their identity as a mother on a social platform—can impact us.“Instagram allows mothers to curate their own versions of motherhood, to pick and choose scenes they want to represent themselves, to edit the content according to their personal aesthetics or belief system. And why not? The actual labor of motherhood is private and rarely celebrated in any meaningful way…”
, Momfluenced
Sara openly confesses her IG obsessions (Ballerina Farm, anyone?). We all have them, the influencers who we obsess over and will invest hours in for a deep dive. My current obsession is with an influencer who I’ve followed for years and she’s going through what looks like a divorce and it’s rocking my world. Do I know her in real life? No, but I’ve followed her since we were both single, we both found “the one,” we both lived in the same city (did I possibly think about scheming of ways to run into her?), and we both became moms on parallel journeys.
Unlike me, she has seemed to have confidence in living life as an adult, something I’ve admired from afar as I wonder, how does she give herself permission to live like that? To fully step into the role as the main character in her story? Without even consciously doing it, I have watched her and absorbed images of her life that seem so radically different than mine. How do I become that wife? That mom? That woman? (There’s also a lot of behind-the-scenes generational wealth that makes her life appear even more glamorous, but isn’t directly addressed on a daily basis when we see her living life with support and conveniences and luxuries that the average Jo can’t afford.)
Now, without directly saying it, we’re to assume she’s getting divorced. I’m digging for all the juicy details because DANG IT, I’M INVESTED. I went back through monthsss of posts to find out the exact date when she stopped wearing her wedding ring, as if that would dig up more answers on their failed marriage. I’m so deeply invested that who she is as a wife and a mother feel like they directly impact my personal identity. But, alas, she’s actually a real human with privacy needs, not a fictional character who I go to bed reading about in my novel before bed so that I’ll wake up to become this bold mother when I wake up.
***
On a day of heavy scrolling, I come up for air feeling numb. How many images of what it means to be a “good mom” have I been exposed to?
I desperately want motherhood to be black and white. I want to type “how to be a good mom” into a search bar and instantly find the answer. Just one answer, not a billion conflicting depictions of the “right way.”
In every Google search, I’ve certainly been trying to find the answers to “what kind of mother should I be?” Am I a mom who breastfeeds until my son can talk? Do I believe in formula? (I never even considered this being something you could believe in or not before becoming a mom.) Am I a mom who admits to feeling depressed and swallows a tiny pill for some semblance of relief? Do I believe in therapy? Am I a mom who sleep trains and believes in “drowsy but awake”? Or am I a mom who holds her baby and rocks him to sleep until he hits puberty? Surely there’s an in-between version of motherhood that I can craft.
Every decision feels riddled with complexity. Am I a stay-at-home mom? Am I a working mom? Who do I follow that’s doing this “right”? What will people think when I decide if I’m actually on team SAHM or not? Not to mention, how are you supposed to do ALLTHETHINGS while you’re creating magical memories, growing a village, and raising a boy who will become a decent and loving and beautifully compassionate human?
“On Instagram, I shop not only for toddler forks and latte-colored BPA-free pacifiers, but also for a version of motherhood I want to embody—only, the act of buying things gets in the way of pursuing the happy, effortless maternity I crave. I often miss out on my own tender moments because I’m busy scrolling through someone else’s. And when I’m thinking clearly, I know that even the women sharing these moments aren’t always experiencing them either, since to share them necessarily means interacting with a phone, curating, staging, and playing with lighting and filters. But consuming those moments feels like an act of self-care, an escape, and a compulsion.”
, Momfluenced
Are you missing your own tender moments, too?
***
“Trad wives” or women performing traditional gender roles online offer a special kind of allure and time suck. You know them: “Mothers milking cows, making sourdough, hanging laundry, sweeping floors. Fathers mostly out of frame and mostly out of the house.” Sara Petersen tries to put her finger on why this all-consuming devotion to children and domesticity feels like addicting content we can’t consume enough of. She questions if she’s obsessed with consuming trad wife content “so I can… what exactly? Make fun of her? Understand my own motherhood more clearly in opposition to hers? Both?”
Why is it soothing and maddening at the same time to watch Ballerina Farm and others effortlessly bake sourdough and knit a onesie for their 27th homeschooled child? How many images of motherhood have I repeatedly exposed myself to that have now shaped my image of a “good mom”?
I never set out to write as an expert on parenting for
. Quite the opposite, I’ve said, hey, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I know nothing and I’m completely reshaping who I am and how I see the world since birthing a human. Oh cool, you too? Want to join me on the ride?We all love a good adventure, a solid trip into the unknown as we embark on unraveling together. And guess what? I still can’t wrap this up in a tidy bow. I can’t tell you what kind of mom I am or what kind of mom you should be, as defined by online standards. I can’t give you all the answers to our collective Google searches.
What I can do is to keep showing up here on
, coming at you live on Fridays (fingers crossed #momlife allows me space and brain capacity to pull it off weekly before the clock strikes midnight) with a fresh essay in your inbox that will challenge us all to think and grow and breathe. Sound good? Let’s do this.Cheers to 2024 and all the tender moments of motherhood waiting for us to gather.
Of course I’m including links in case you too would like to be influenced today. Happy middle-of-the-night shopping, fellow moms. And, no, these are not affiliate links where I will earn any kind of money because I do not have that kind of influential power.
Here’s to middle-of-the-night reading. Glad to meet you!
So much YES to all of this! 🙌🏻 and no, I still have not figured out how to get stuff done with a 14 month old 😂🤷🏻♀️