Once upon a time our mothers mothered. They had no smart phones, no all day kids TV, no internet… they would make plans with other mums by calling on a landline or  (can you believe it?) going around to their house and knocking on the door! 

Now take a moment to think about what “we” have. Not just the technology, the means to entertain our kids, organise ourselves and find our (sorry, cringe) “tribe”; but the information. Wow. We have come a really long way since the stiff upper lip nonsense. Now we share. And share. And share. 

I’m starting to feel somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of content there is for mothers. It’s at a level where I can’t possibly keep up with all the Instagram pics, blog posts, events and debates – I would need to not have kids to have the time to read and interact with others about what it’s like to have kids.

I’m not knocking it. New mothers are being “created” every day. So the conversations need to stay public, because from c-section to child-unexpectedly-has-special-needs to post-natal-depression to refluxy-baby-puking-every-where to I-don’t-know-who-I-am-anymore; there is always something that can be helped by sharing. 

In fact, last month two things happened on the sharing front;

1. A mother I know on Facebook posted a very saccharine sweet status about how her 6 month old was the best thing in the world. Apparently being woken at 3am was fine because this baby is just so wonderful. Life has changed but oh so much for the better etc. etc.

2. The Daily Mail attacked some famous Mummy bloggers for being “scummy mummies” asking why it was suddenly ok to brag about being a shit mum? 

The former annoyed me because I felt this mum was letting the side down with her rose-tinted-spectacle view. The latter annoyed me because clearly these sharing mothers (instagrammers/bloggers) aren’t rubbish mothers; rubbish mothers don’t brag about it online. Rubbish mothers are too busy being rubbish. In fact, as they swear and smoke a fag over their little ones whilst handing them a coca-cola, they don’t consider confessing they’ve behaved in this appalling way because they probably don’t think it’s appalling. 

Of course I’m backing the “scummy mummies” all the way. One of the bad parenting examples was giving kids fish fingers. Which was basically my main diet as a five year old… And now my kids have fish fingers at least once a week and I don’t see that as shameful. It’s something they happily eat and if you’ve ever experienced a fussy toddler, you’ll know sometimes you just want them to eat. No bargaining, no choo choo noises, no tears, just happy, scoffing children at tea time. Many mums stood up in #solidaritea and posted pictures of their fish finger tea time, and Bird’s Eye used it to their advantage in an online campaign – good on ’em!

Back to the happy mum; well, good for her. How funny that my immediate thought was “you’re lying”! She is entitled to be enjoying those first 6 months and to feel good enough about it to brag online, but I’m so used to reading the opposite mantras of “it’s so hard”, “you got this mama”, “it’s tough but worth it” – it’s honestly a bit shocking to just read a positive post about having a baby – just saying their baby is a joy, no one is doing that – how odd!

But of course here I am over-sharing with the rest of them. My children are a joy. There are moments in our days together where I think I might burst they are so lovely. However, these are moments mixed in with all the other stuff that comes with parenting; the child that will not lie still whilst you deal with poo-mageddon, a melt down because you’ve put a book back in the wrong place and all the other bizarre moments on the rollercoaster that is looking after small children. It’s tough. It’s a also a joy, but yeesh, it’s mostly tough. And that’s where I can’t complain about the insane amount of parenting blogs. The over-share is there to help us through the tough times, remind us that everyone is going through similar stuff. 

So, keep on blogging you mothers (but don’t expect me to have time to read it all)!