Saturday, October 20, 2012

Braggart Disclaimer

"I'll never again post on Facebook how great everything is!"

This is what I left my house saying one morning this week. You can guess that things were not so great that morning.  It was a bit of a rough week for me.

At another time, I found myself  mindlessly scrolling through FB on my phone, and said to Cecil, " If I see one more post about how much they accomplished in one day.........."

 At that point he kindly took my phone, and in his usual encouraging way, reassured me how great I am.  Trust me on that day, I wasn't great! Not. Even. Close.  He just encourages, it's what he does.

Facebook can make us feel so horrible about ourselves.   It's hard not to compare ourselves to the statuses that tout amazing feats that go something like this:

Laundry done, floors vacuumed, 25 freezer meals  ready to go in the freezer, cows milked, vegetables harvested, eggs gathered.  Now, coffee with my feet up having a little me time.  Then I'll wake the kids to begin our homeschooling lessons for the day.  

Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but not a huge stretch of some updates I see.

Then there are these:

Wonderful weekend with my spectacular family planned.  First, a stroll in the park, then a picnic.  A little sightseeing in the city, a hike in the mountains, and we'll watch the sunset on the beach.

Again a bit of a stretch.

The first thing that comes to mind is " How do you have time for all that?  When do you clean your house and prepare for the week ahead?"

Now, I will be the first to tell you that I believe that often when we consider people to be braggarts on Facebook, the problem, the bragging, is usually in the eye of the beholder.  And I realize that my response to these posts are purely my issues.  I'm not blaming the posters of these glowing statuses for trying to make one feel like a loser.

That being said, bragging posts can sometimes be very discouraging.  And I don't want my status updates to discourage anyone so here's my disclaimer:

If ever I post anything that remotely makes it seem that I have it all together, that I'm being crazy productive, or that I'm in the running for 'Mom of the Year', it's likely that the event that I'm posting about is the only thing I've gotten right so far that week.  

It's possible that I left late for work every day that week.
I may have had to stop at Wal-greens on one of said days to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste because one or more of my kids didn't brush their teeth.
I may have forgotten about Crazy Hat Day at my daughter's preschool.
I may have had an epic argument with one of my girls that may or may not have had to be mediated by my husband.
Maybe I didn't cook a single meal that week, and we ate out every. single. night.
It's possible that I said some really unkind things to my husband.

* All of the above hypothetical, of course.....maybe...I'm telling y'all it was a rough week.

Once I posted a picture of our family watching a movie outside with a projector and a make-shift screen set up.  The kids thought it was the coolest thing.  One commenter stated that she loved that I take time to do special things my kids.  Truth is, that was probably one special moment in a week of harried chaos.

Of course, we are going to write about the things we get right. Let's remember this: