In a recent survey, 42% of mothers said that they “sometimes suffer from Pinterest stress.” According to Today.com, “Symptoms include staying up until 3am clicking through photos of exquisite hand-made birthday party favors even though you’ll end up buying yours at the dollar store, or sobbing quietly into a burnt mess of expensive ingredients that were supposed to be adorable bunny cookies for the school bake sale.”
I’ll admit. I’ve been sucked in by the radiating allure of Pinterest and the joy it promises. My DIY bangs turned out to be a hack job. My super easy gingerbread men on a stick looked like the walking gingerdead. And that awesome no-fail dessert everyone was pinning, failed on me. It turned into soup. And our guests politely insisted on sampling it and sipping their cake from their bowls like stew.
“Well, it tastes like pudding,” our friend kindly said. They haven’t been over since. I think Pinterest is trying to kill me. But you know what? White girl problems.
I tell this to my daughter. She is two and blonde and beloved by a whole host of wonderful people. So when she cries because her strawberry pancakes have too many strawberries or because I turned off Mickey Mouse. And not just cries, but throws herself to the ground in a righteous rage, I have three words for her before I walk away: White. Girl. Problems.
Right after I got married, the Today Show ran a segment on post-wedding depression, a condition where brides sink into a malaise because they are no longer the center of attention. “You know what I call that?” My dad said when I showed him the article, “Whiny white girl disease!” Now, I’m a mum and we’re all whining over “mummy wars” and Pinterest stress and all those things that well-fed, middle class people with iPhones have to worry about.