Most likely it's my own insecurities but I pick mental fights with other people - mainly other mothers in my head. I write their dialogue, a diatribe against my parenting practices that manifests itself in correcting my children's behavior especially in public or after a stint on Facebook. I premeditate what others might whisper behind my back if they were to see my sons fight in public or heaven forbid play with my iPhone through the aisles of Target.
Social media and the ever present striving for parental perfection is better than my own mother's guilt trips, and she was a Gold Medal Winner in that arena. Big Brother is no longer a fictional warning in a dystopian nightmare but a reality probably better named Big Mother. We are watched and weighed and found wanting. We can jokingly admit through snarky memes that we like chocolate and wine and hate to run, but I can feel the imaginary stares watching my fat jean-shorted ass waddle across the school parking lot as every other mother picks up her kid in Lululemon while discussing her latest Crossfit session.
But then again, that's me and my imaginary frenemy. The one who won't post current photos of herself because editing can only go so far and can't erase the extra ten pounds I can't run away from despite trying for an hour on the treadmill and a 1200 calorie diet. Aging sucks. Not that mothers age anymore. Hair color, expensive anti-aging creams, and a good Instagram filter can fix that. Just as long as no one snaps a photo of me running with my hair in a static-charged ponytail, pillow creases etched across my cheek, coffee breath both fuel and foe as it makes me go but taints my conversations with an acrid odor.
I know it's me. That I am adding up my demerits because I don't and can't admit that I let my kids play with their electronics or eat saturated fats. Because I can mentally hear the eyes rolls and the well-meaning judgments.
People who tell me they are above the noise and do what they want with all the bravo of a television rebel, are usually the same people posting their wise and thoughtful parenting tips to their devoted groupie mothers. They are the ones I judge myself against the most wondering if behind closed doors their children are as perfect as their profile pictures make them seem. Or if they are like my own kids who two seconds before and after I take their picture are punching and pinching each other. They only smiled for a second because I threatened to take away Fortnite if they didn't stay still.
Do I need help? Yes. There needs to be a form of AA for battered mothers of social media and an over-watched society. God Bless our own moms and their relaxed and distanced parenting methods. And my mother was considered over-protective. The same one who let me go to the playground by myself and ride my bike to the store or take the bus to the mall. The same mother who took me to McDonald's as a treat. My whole childhood would be suspect if put under the eye of our current over-examination of what parenting means.
Photo by Andrea Yori https://www.flickr.com/photos/abracapocus_pocuscadabra/4967176153
No comments:
Post a Comment