Damn Right, I am Bragging

There was an article floating around Facebook recently about how people need to stop bragging and start being "real" in their posts on social networking sites. It talked about a very typical Saturday morning that starts with mom and dad (wanting a few more minutes of sleep) telling the kids to go watch TV. Later, there is some disaster at breakfast followed by whiney kids all day, but a quick post to Facebook with all the kids smiling that is captioned "fun morning with the kids!" or something.

The gist of the article is - stop making your life look perfect, it makes everyone else feel inferior.

When I first read it, I totally agreed. I try to post the whole picture, so to speak. I post the good, the bad and the ugly (and yes, by "ugly" I mean the photos of me in a bikini on January 1). But let's face it, even on my page, there are WAY more "good" posts than there are "bad" posts.

And then I felt guilty about that. Do I make people feel inferior? Do people look at my "Facebook life" and think we have a perfect life, kids, family?

The thought is honestly laughable to me, because every day of my life is insanely difficult. Like if I let it get to me, I would probably cry a minimum of 20 times a day.

Every waking moment of every day I am being pulled in at least 6 directions. When I do have 5 minutes to myself I have to weigh the options of showering, getting much needed loads of laundry folded or eating. Typically none of them happens because someone starts crying and needs my attention. Most mornings I am awoken by someone in tears and most nights I don't even fall asleep; I literally pass out from exhaustion.

But sometimes I get organized enough to do a craft with my kids, or maybe they all sleep for 10 hours at night, or they do some super polite thing. Maybe my husband actually gets a chance to do something super sweet for me between helping with the kids, walking the dog and being a rock star at work.

And you know what? I would rather hang on to those things. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with making you feel like a crappy mom because you only have one kid and didn't get dressed 4 out of 7 days this week.

Not to sound self absorbed, but it actually has nothing to do with you at all. It has everything to do with me needing to give myself a pat on the back because let's face it, parenthood can feel very frustrating and discouraging.

I gave up my career, my body, my financial freedom for what? Four thankless kids who whine at me all day? A house that most of the time looks like a tornado blew through? Obviously, I know it is so much more than that in the end, but I'm in the trenches right now.

There is so much more take than give. So much more bad behavior than good. So little sleep and not enough appreciation from the little ones I work so hard to provide for. And, masochist that I must be, it really doesn't bother me that much.

I knew what I signed up for going in, I'm not in shock by the difficulties I face on a daily basis. But when so much of my day feels like a total and complete failure, sometimes I just need to tell the world, "Hey, look at me! I succeeded at something today!"

Here is an example. This morning two things happened:

1. Steven and I both got a great 9 hour stretch of sleep. It has been about a month since he has gone longer than 5 hours so it felt great.

2. Peter woke up and found that the "tooth fairy" hadn't come to take his second tooth from under his pillow.

I posted the first thing and internalized what a crappy mom I was about the second thing.

Because you know what, sometimes moms just need to feel like less of a failure.

So instead of feeling bad about yourself for anything someone posts about their "perfect" life, realize they are just bragging about the 3 days they DID get dressed and not focusing on the other 4 days.

I say - brag away! We all need a "win" every once in a while.