You forgot to post on National Daughters Day. Does this mean you love your daughters less if it’s not photo-documented on social media? Yes, yes it does. Kidding, of course.
In actuality, some of us struggle with this. We grew up in the era of social media. For me, personally, Facebook became a thing when I was about halfway through college (and you could only join if you had a school email). Thank God, because who needs to see the photos before Facebook documenting my college choices. No one, that’s who.
What began as simple status updates featuring our deepest inner monologues: “Heading to the cafeteria. I’ll probably get a salad.” Has divulged into a boomer-filled land of condescending comments, political arguments and rants, and a virtual baby book of our kid’s life accomplishments. Not to mention the so-called friends from high school, weird neighborhood or mom groups, and ads targeting our every click.
It’s very hard to scroll these days and not feel like every post is braggadocios and seeking validation. Does anyone else feel this way? We all like to keep Grandma updated, but at what point did the posting become an obligatory check box with the picture-perfect cover photo, clincher caption to entice them to swipe left (no, not that kind of swipe, stay with me here), and now we can even select a song with the perfect lyrics to encapsulate the feel of whatever life event or weekend wrap-up we are posting about.
I digress. The entire point of this post is that you are not a bad mom if you didn’t post a picture or video of your daughter on National Daughters Day yesterday. In fact, you’re probably a great mom because instead, you were likely helping her with her paper or vocabulary words, or shuttling her to soccer or cheer practice or dance class, and making sure was fed, clean, and tucked into bed. Much like Valentine’s Day, probably more so, these holidays feel as though are made up as another cruel to-do for moms (school dress-up day vibes, anyone?).
I was not blessed with any princesses in my life (save, my wonderful nieces I get to spoil), but I plan to not only NOT post on National Sons Day this week, but to boycott it, and instead, spend time with my boys because they love their mama, whether I post a photo of them or not. And they would choose the later most days.
