Perfection And Parenting 

Being the perfect parent. Lets be brutally honest, it’s easy to achieve. It’s simple and of course anybody can do it. That is, if you live your family life through the rose tinted lenses of social media.

Of course, we all know if you are a parent it is rarely perfect, if anything it’s quite the opposite. Social media does have a lot to answer too. People constantly portraying the perfect children with the perfect family and lifestyle.

This year will be my 22nd year of being a parent and when I was thinking the other day about what the impact of social media has had on parenting, it actually shocked me if I’m honest. The more i thought about it, the more shocked I was.

Times really have changed and I’m not saying all the changes are bad, because they most certainly are not, but social media or at least people using social media can definitely give the wrong impression about parenting and family life. In my opinion the biggest culprits are celebrities, but that’s a completely different post for another day.

When I became a parent 22 years ago Facebook, Twitter and Instagram etc simply didn’t exist. The internet itself was still in its infancy so the pressures of what was right or wrong when it came to parenting weren’t online. There was no googling this, that or the another. Blogging what is that? Not sure the word had even been invented, haha!

Of course I’m not saying that people didn’t shout from the rooftops that they had the perfect parenting ideas and of course had the perfect family, but you would only hear that at your local playgroup or on the school playground.

There were also parenting books around, but they were designed to be helpful rather than trying to achieve and becoming the perfect parent.

If we are honest we all see it. The perfect children in the perfect photo leading the perfect family life. Of course it’s all nonsense. Most of these photos and images are staged. A lot of  blog posts are, well, not to put a finer point on it, are usually exaggerated to create a perfect family setting. I’m not sure about everybody else, but I usually switch off after the first paragraph.

There is in my humble opinion no such a thing as perfect parenting, but social media and some  people who post on social media try to indicate there is because you’re led to believe they exist, they are living it.

I personally have always written about all the ups and sometimes massive downs in parenting. I like to think I have never held back when I write about parenting. I like to tell people that I find parenting hard at times and yes of course it can also be the most rewarding job in the world no doubts about that.

I always enjoy reading posts about the hard times that we as parents sometimes encounter. Not because I’m gloating, but it helps remind me that I’m not alone when I find parenting tough, that we are all going through the hard times of raising babies, toddlers and teenagers.

I would love to know if you think social media is giving the wrong impression about parenting. That it is inadvertently saying that there is such a thing as perfect parenting, because believe me there is no such thing.