Posted On: 14/01/2015
By: Sarah Stacey
Yesterday, the ever funny and irreverant Zoe wrote an article on why social media ain’t the place for baby pictures – both for selfish and safety concerns. Across my social media it divided opinion. Some mums were up in arms over her criticism while other mums agreed with her whole-heartedly. Read her article here. One mum, Sarah, wanted her own say:
“It’s 3am. I am bouncing on an exercise ball in the dark watching a show about some mental parents spying on their kids getting shit faced in kavos. On mute. With subtitles on. This would, 6 weeks ago, have seemed like the behaviour of a deranged insomniac having a breakdown. It is now my life. And what I am doing currently, as loopy as it looks, is the only thing that gets the demon to sleep. I’ve had a baby. And everything has changed.
Baby bores on Facebook often appear on those ‘lists’. You know the ones, ‘things that you hate on facebook’, ‘everyone follows someone like this on Twitter’ and ‘reasons you should hate yourself and everyone is judging you’. (Ok, maybe I made the last one up). So why do us boring cows insist on putting on endless pics of our dribbling, snotty, bald little offspring and clogging up your newsfeed? There are two simple reasons. Firstly, we are absolutely bloody made up with ourselves.
Having your own baby is like finding ‘the one’. It’s like the feeling when you tear off wrapping paper and see the Chanel logo. You could compare it to waking up with Kim Kardashian’s hair, being given unlimited spends in a trolley dash at Christian Louboutin and finding out a massive celebrity is getting married/divorced/a sex change all in one go. But actually I can’t get anywhere close to explaining it. Imagine if that happened; are you telling me you could resist a cheeky selfie if you had a barnet of such epic greatness only Dame Kim could compete? Would you manage to swerve filtering your magic red soles to make them extra extra dreamy? Could you avoid retweeting a lol-inducing meme about the latest celeb shocker? Didn’t think so. That’s how we feel about our babies every bloody day. If you think we post a lot, you want to see our phone’s photo stream.
However, smug pride isn’t the only reason we do it. Allow me to return to the 3am bounce-athon I mentioned at the start. I spent some pretty low moments on that bastard ball when my baby was just that, a tiny, sanity-stealing sleep-destroying bundle of evil. Hormonal fluctuations, flabby belly shame and next to zero shut-eye are bad enough, never mind the debilitating post-natal depression some women struggle with. When you’ve been dumped by your fella, and once you’re past the Haagen Dazs and weeping stage, more than likely you’ll want to show the world that you are still living, still looking gorgeous on a girls’ night out and still smiling (even if the night ended with you cry/spewing into a bouncer’s crotch). Baby pics are much the same. Except with more spewing.
Here’s a secret us baby bores might not always share: sometimes having a baby is shit. It’s lonely, exhausting, terrifying and sometimes unbearably boring. So trust me when I say: stitches in your foof, burst eardrums from all the crying and explosive nappies are nothing to brag about. The fact of the matter is: we post our pictures to remind the world (and ourselves) of the miraculous reality. The brilliant, beautiful, hilarious and sweet side of the coin. Our best bits. It keeps us sane. When you roll your eyes at ANOTHER baby picture, just imagine the 3am, crying, unwashed mother desperately bouncing on the bastard ball and give us a like. After all, it was YOU once.”
Follow Sarah on Twitter here
XOXO
Other articles you might like:
Baby, baby, baby, noooo!
Facebook mings
New Year, new positivity
If you would like to advertise with Scouse Bird Problems please visit the ‘Contact us’ form on the website, or click the image below and request a media pack.
