4.29.2012

Hypocrite, Thats Me

This last week I made a boo boo. I pushed the blame for my feeling of inadequacy onto others. I updated my status to "Does anyone ever thing that their Facebook bragging might cause pain to others?" I blamed the people of Facebook for making me feel bad about my dirty house. After all they "did 10 loads of laundry and fixed a motor vehicle, all while balancing their newborn baby on their nose", or something like that. After reading about every one's spectacular accomplishments, how could anyone find a day of simple accomplishments acceptable. I sometimes feel insecure in my marriage when I read that other husbands come home from work and do all the dirty dishes and put their kids to bed. If my husbands not doing that, I must be doing something wrong to make him not want to do that for me, right? I blamed the people who post to Pinterest for making me feel the need to make robot juice boxes and cake pops for my 2 year old daughters birthday party. If I didn't I would be such a failure because everyone I know does all zillion crafts they pin. Heaven forbid a child should get a simple cupcake without a cartoon characters face frosted onto it
The point of this post is that after all that boo hooing I did about how everyone else's internet activity makes me feel awful about myself and my life I decided that after all the effort I put into my daughter's birthday it was my right to post pictures and brag about the things that I'd done on Facebook. Guess what, I got called out. My friend jokingly said "who's bragging now?" And so I thought about it and decided yes I was bragging but was my intention was not to make anyone else feel bad. Surely the intention of the other braggers was to hurt other's feelings, right? Probably not. I just didn't think about other people and I'm now thinking other's probably don't either. I thought woohoo for me, but didn't even think about that version of me who exists somewhere in the world who at that moment wanted to know that it was okay that she was only able to feed her child  microwave mac and cheese and change wet diapers because she was so drained. I'm sorry alternate me. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to provide you comfort that you are doing just fine if your child is clean, fed, and loved. But I'm not sorry that I needed someone to tell me "Hey you went above and beyond and did a great job with those huge misshapen candy coated cake robots!" I think the reason people post to Facebook is because we all just need a little company through life's adventures, or lack of them. Life can be very lonely if you have no ones to share it with. So I'm sorry internet friends.  I am sorry that I expected you to keep your traps shut when your spouse (fill in the blank with something wonderful), but then I turn around and bombard you when my daughter does the cutest thing ever. I will try to remember that my negative feelings about your posts have less to do with you and more to do with me. But at the same time, I will try to brag only when I find it absolutely necessary.  

3 comments:

  1. Good job, Melanie. And happy bday little aurora! I can't believe she is two!

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    1. You are a terrific wife, mother, and friend Melanie! :D
      I love hearing how you're feeling. If it's happy news or a hard day, no need to conceal or sugar coat. Like you said, it's all about sharing what's real in our life's journey :)

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  2. Enjoyed this. I wish I could tell all you mothers out there that your kids won't even remember their birthday parties until they're at least 5 or 6 and even then, it's debatable. So relax and have fun!

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