Last night I was scrolling slowly through various feeds on the Internet when I suddenly had a massive bout of FOMO. Although I’m not sure it’s called FOMO (Fear of Missing Out, for the uninitiated) as much as FOPAW (Fear of Parenting All Wrong).
See, all of these images – all of these happy snaps that I was seeing – were contradicting my own reality.
All I could see were these visuals of amazing road trips, with happy families piling up their belongings into the family car, then gleefully taking off, singing along to Frozen, getting along famously and playing travel tic-tac-toe as they traversed the country. Meanwhile, every time my family had ever attempted to take a cross country trip, or a car trip of any kind come to think of it, it always descended into something out of a National Lampoon’s Vacation movie. There we would be, not able to make it a kilometre out of town before World War 3 would break out in the backseat over something as trivial like who got to look out of the WINDOW. I wish I was kidding.
Then there were all of these teenagers who were hanging out with their mothers and families and appearing gleeful. The pictures of them floating onto the beach in their flowing white cotton outfits, smiling and playfully hugging one another wasn’t exactly what I, as a parent, was experiencing. Hell, if I was lucky enough to get all three of my kids into the car of a morning without some kind of apocalyptic styled argument over who got to ride shotgun, I’d consider it a good day.
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I definitely have to agree that life with kids is messy!! I have two toddlers and I think more food goes on the table and the floor than in their mouths; and don't even get me started about toys (I rarely buy any toys yet they seem to have enough to open our own store), clothes (all the ones that I have neatly folded and put in drawers and on shelves), nappies (the clean ones from the change table), the contents of my wallet if I forget to stash it high enough...... you get the point. Love my little terrorbots!!
So true- Facebook only shows the happy moments- which is not reality.